So how do the Controller Secondaries rank now?

Been years since I've done a Controller since my Ill/Rad. Radiation was pretty much king back then (Like Issue 3) but just glancing over the secondaries it looks like Dark Affinity may have that new top spot?

Whats everyone's opinion?

Tar Patch does have -RES.

Dark's claim to fame is getting capped S/L Resistances very easily, along with other high resistances depending on A/PPP Shields. You can also get 30+ to all defenses easily, which is a basic Soft Cap with -ToHit debuffing.

Dark Affinity is extremely powerful, in the end. For a set like Illusion, you'd still likely want a secondary that provides Recharge for the same of Perma PA.

Rank in terms of what?

Ranking Secondaries really depends on what you want. Some are certainly more popular than others, but it really depends on your primary and what you want out of your secondary. Are you planning to build for teams or solo? Are you building for Incarnate content or leveling up? How much influence do you plan on spending? Do you want or need damage from your secondary? Do you need more control? Do you need certain types of buffs or debuffs? Do you need certain types of powers? Ranged or melee? How busy is your primary, and how busy do you want your secondary to be?

Your primary has a huge impact on the effectiveness of your secondary. Certain combos have a lot of synergy, while others have little or even some negativey synergy. For example, Illusion is a great primary. Kinetics is a great secondary. But Kinetics lacks the debuffs that help make Phantom Army better, and Phantasm tend to knock foes out of melee when you need them in melee for some Kinetics buffs. And Illusion lacks the AoE damage that makes Kinetics so effective.

Dark Affinity is popular because (a) it is new; (b) many folks have been dreaming of it for a long time; (c) it is pretty darn good. Rad goes well with everything, but some secondary sets have better -Resistance, others have better healing, others have better -ToHit, or better buffs. Time, Cold and Storm are all very popular for good reason. With the new KB-2-KD proc, Storm's Tornado takes a big bump up as a source of control and damage, reducing the chaos from the set. There are still a good number of Kinetics around, but most are the usual Fire/Kin. Most of the newer controllers use */Dark or */Time because they are the newest secondaries.

Rarer secondaries are Sonic, Forcefield and Trick Arrow. Don't see many Therms although it is a nice team support set. I see older Emps, but not many new ones. A few people seem to like Poison, but it is fairly rare, too. Poison is pretty new, but the other versions were pretty unimpressive, so it isn't very popular. (I have a */Poison MM and I really don't care for the Mastermind version.)

With Fire, I would say that Kin and Rad are still tops, as both sets have major synergy with Fire Control. Some folks love Fire/Storm in spite of the endurance issues and some synergy issues. I have a Fire/Time that I started shortly after Time came out, but I have only gotten him up to 28. So far, I think I like Fire/Rad better.

With Illusion, I think there is an ongoing debate for Rad, Dark, Time and Cold. I have all but Dark at 50, and all of them are great. (I also have Ill/TA and Ill/Storm.) Ill/Cold is the best AV killer in my opinion, but not the best in all situtions. My Ill/Rad is still my favorite all around character, but Ill/Time is pretty awesome and has the +Recharge to make it easy to get to Perma-PA. My Ill/Time also has capped S/L defense and high other defenses. Ill/Storm is also very chaotic, but Storm adds powerful debuffs, controls and damaging pseudopets. Ill/TA also gets some good damage from the secondary and has added control and debuffs.

I still love the pairing of Gravity and Storm, but would roll up a Grav/Traps in a second if Traps were proliferated. Grav/Storm was a great solo character, but not great on teams due to the chaos. The recent improvement to Gravity has made it much better.

Ice, Earth and Electric are all low damage control sets, so it really depends on what you want to do with the controller as to which secondary you choose. I love both my Earth/Rad and my Earth/Storm. Earth/Dark would give you massive AoE Defense, Resistance and ToHit debuffs. Ice and Elec both have PB AoE toggle control powers, so you may want to look for a secondary that can add a PB AoE toggle to pair with it, like Rad (Choking Cloud) or Time (Time's Juncture) or maybe Poison (Venomous Gas) -- but not everyone likes that playstyle. Some would prefer to build for Defense, so a set that will add some defense for you, like Dark or Time (or FF) would work.

I haven't tried it or heard much discussion, but I bet that Mind/Dark would be pretty good if you want to do a Mind Controller. Dark and Time will work well with any primary.

There are a lot of opinions about the best secondary for Plant. Rad, Storm, Kin have all been favorites. I haven't seen much discussion about Plant/Time or Plant/Dark, but I bet they would be good, too.

I have a Dark/Dark -- it is a popular combo theme-wise and because both sets came out at the same time, so you could try both in one character. I also rolled up a Dark/Storm, which I expect to be very effective with stacking PB Aoe stuns. Dark is a pretty flexible primary, so it should work well with Time, Rad, Kin and just about everything else.