Best and easy trolls to use?

My first real toon was a HL controller...and she's still my main. I created a mental controller villain, had fun for a few weeks then went back to my HL toon.

Having started with HL, I don't find it hard....I got used to getting up close and personal, and it does tend to favour a controller with a DPS inclination. Anyway, perhaps if I started with mental or gadgets I'd find HL hard...but I don't, and it's fun.

Long story short, pick a power that interests you and go for it. You'll figure out the pros and cons pretty quick.

Any troll is useful for something they all can do pretty much anything the other can but some have minor differences. Some have things that stand out.
Gadgets - power interactions, power giving turret (35% SC), ranged debuff
Mental - crowd control, shield supercharge, ranged debuff
Hard Light - crowd control, shield supercharge, 4 encasements one move (I think)

Pick one that best suits your needs, know that power could be given easy with any troll power do to...

-Utility Belt w/ up to 3 trinkets
-Word of Power (Iconic giving SC)
-New neck mod allows for power burst (defib, empowerment, recharge) stacking
-Mods in gears and rings for additional vitalization.

I hear most people complain about HL because of the pot and debuff moves but I think that's what makes HL fun being able to jump into the battle and attack. All are very fun powers.

If you want to strictly troll, go mental.
If you want to dabble into trolling and DPSing, go gadgets.
If you want to DPS and troll sporadically, go HL.

i play all three troll power sets and my main toon is hl troll. having specialized in a single power set, i can definitely say it's inferior to the others. best hl troll is better than worst gadget troll, but best against best, troll is the weakest set.

what he said. I started this game a little more than a year ago, and my first toon on both villain and hero side was the Mental Troller. I have done all three troller types but certainly not the others as much as Mental. Mental just feels...safe I guess. You are a range toon, all that power is pretty overwhelming when u want it. One tree is fantastic for AoE damage/debuffs, the other is great for CC and single target range damage. I dip into both trees for various reasons but the things I have found when comparing to the other two troll sets include:
1) seems easier to do damage AND survive as a mental troller instead of mental dps; not so with the other two sets.
2) The interactions you slap onto a baddie when mental may not be as AoE-heavy as say Gadgets, but they interact with each other very well (i.e. you set yourself up for your own interactions very nicely). I know Gadgets does too, don't get me wrong, but we get DAZED, TERROR, BURNING, ENCASED, ELECTRIFY and FROSTBITE as well as the ability to capitalize on some of those interactions.
3) Mental toons get a LOT of powers that protect you, at last count I could have 3 powers ALL from Mental trees that protect me in some way AND that is not counting the SC bubble. Not as many for the other two sets IIRC (again, not an expert on the other sets so much).
4) Honestly feels like the ONLY troller set that I could theorhetically solo using NOTHING but powers (no weapons) do to cheap-ish power costs for BIG returns. When I spec out for VIT and crit power chance and Mag, I totally plan to run ALL solo missions using nuthing but my loadout tray.

Last point, someone earlier said that the Word Of Power and Speed Drain SC abilities are a crutch. While any decent troller will tell you that they aren't necessary to "troll" well, I personally love them for various reasons. Everyone likes power and sometimes you run out (I know, its odd). But that SC is just waitin there to be used. WoP can do damage and electrify AND self heal (a little) too. Plus, its great to get someone that is either on empty or just rezzed back into the swing of things so a SC and PoT later, and they are on the fast road to (power) recovery.

My 2 cents.

Not all raid healers use the health/power SC in their loadout or they aren't full time healers. If all healers ran with those, the trollers probably wouldn't need the power SC. Players should really plan for the worst in a raid/alert.

I've played mental since launch and haven't looked back, that being said I did try hard light and gadget, I find myself playing my gadget toon more often now. But I still prefer mental over the others as far as trolls go.