Master of Puppets

The  Master of Puppets is a formidable character.  Pulling the strings of both  enemy and ally, he sets up the field of battle to his  liking.  He moves allies around the battlefield and makes them attack  his foes with just a casual flick of his wand.  Enemies?  Enemies have  it much worse.  Enemies are pushed around by him if they're  lucky, and if desired, he can make them attack  their own allies, sowing chaos along the enemy line.

If that's  not compelling enough, the Master of Puppets also virtually ensures that his  group will go first, provides a high level of healing, and can serve as  the party's most skilled member.  And the best part is he does it without requiring any items, they only serve to make him even more dangerous.

How Does He Do It?

Initiative -- +18 to allies at 30, Personal Init of +42 (47 with an Uncommon Helm)
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Granting Allies Attacks -- Both of your At-Will powers allow allies to make attacks, one of which includes positioning benefits.  You also incorporate many lazylord powers to grant allies movement and/or attacks.
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Skill Master -- Only two skills in the game (Acrobatics & Arcana) have Trained-Only usages, we'll be trained in both.  In addition we'll have high modifiers in most skills.
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Masterful Healer
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Passable Controller
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What do I do on Round 1?

The following uses the #s of the level 10 build

   1. Move - Reorient the Axis. Each ally in Close Burst 5 can Shift 5 as a Free
   2. Standard - Staggering Note...Direct the Strike if no ally is in range to MBA
   3. At a +3 to all Ally initiatives

Level 20:

   1. Move - Reorient the Axis. Each ally in Close Burst 5 can Shift 6 as a Free
   2. Standard - Shout of Evasion. On a hit, you+allies within 10 can shift 7
   3. At a +11 to all Ally initiatives

Level 30:

1. Move - Reorient the Axis.  Each ally in Close Burst 5 can Shift 8 as a Free
2. Standard - Shout of Evasion.  On a hit, you+allies within 10 can shift 10
3. Minor - Staggering Note. On a hit, Push 2 and one ally can make an MBA
4. Free (on an enemy turn) - A Plan Comes Together.  Enemy within Close Burst 10 starts its turn, one ally makes an MBA (which dazes on a hit), then another ally can charge the target and prone it on a hit.

Item Neutral

This build is posted up without taking a single item other than the default Magic Armor/Weapon/Neck, and a Shield of Deflection (level 12/22 Common).  I'll list a few uncommons and rares here that serve to augment the character further.

Uncommons

1. Tactician's Chainmail (5/10) -- Expensive Armor, but it adds +1 to all your Int-based powers/class features (like Reorient)
2. Cloak of Distortion (4/9) -- Also expensive, but a bonus to your defenses against ranged attacks is a clear winner on a ranged build
3. Wand of Shield (3/8) -- If you go with Wands, this one's solid, I'd upgrade it to the Iron Wand at 24/29
4. Orb of Nimble Thoughts (3/8) -- Also referred to as the Orb of Cheese.  You'll find this mildly useful in heroic, before your benfits start to amp up, but I'd ditch it after around 12th level.  I'll cover the orbs more in the Variant post
5. Gloves of the Healer (12/22) -- More healing is always good
6. Eye of Awareness (23) -- 2 Will and an item bonus to your Initiative
7. General`s Belt (15)/Ring of Tactical Brilliance (16) -- These two items are from the same Item Set and grant +1 Fort/+2 Will, and bonuses when you heal an ally or shift them with a Warlord power (like Reorient) -- This Ring may get changed to Rare, most Rings will be rare, there's potential that ones in Item Sets won't be, though.

Rares

1. Ring of Tenacious Will (21) -- Your surges based on your Charisma is handy in those rare situations that you take some hits.

Potential Expansions

1. This build is made setting-neutral.  In Eberron the addition of Mark of the Healer is a great choice.  In FR you can pick up a nifty background for some more oomph to a skill or two.
2. Themes -- A theme wasn't picked for this character, as LFR doesn't allow them (and they're not in the CB anyway), but if you play in a game where they're allowed, I'd look at the Elemental Priest or Noble Adept.  Both themes offer a strong Encounter power.
3. On the Theme-related front, if you don't play a Tiefling, check out the Freedom Fighter PP (Escaped Slave theme from Dr390).  The benefits are quite similar to Infernal Eye, and you qualify even if you took another theme.
4. I've gone with the generic +X wand for most of his career.  Several other options are available if you can afford them.  One decent choice is the Wand of Shield, to avoid being hit.  Although with the Neck item granting +6 to defenses for distance attacks, you shouldn't get hit much.  Another strong choice is the Wand of Thundering Anguish (AV2) which will add some extra Thunder damage to ally attacks after hitting with Staggering Note.
5. Due to that, taking one of the feats to retrain your Racial power may have usage, as you likely won't use it much, between your amazing Will defense and your Interrupts.

Thanks to Auspex7 for being my sounding board while I fine-tuned the build, as well as several people who assisted/commented in the ##4e channel.  I also want to thank the people who posted in the original thread with feedback.

Variants

The Orb Variant

This variant is like the main build, but uses an Orb.  Once again we assume no free feats, so you'll notice that Imperious Majesty gets removed from the build.  Ths is easily covered by the Orb of Nimble Thoughts through Heroic and Early Paragon.  Once you get your PP feature at level 16, it's not really needed, switch to a better Orb.

If you look at the summary you'll notice a long list of Orbs.  They're all Uncommon with the exception of the generic Accurate Orb +6.  The other ones listed are the good options if you can get the Uncommon items.  My personal pick is the Accurate Orb of Mental Constitution.
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The "Who Wants to be a Tiefling?" Variant

Once again, this variant is based off of the main build.  We lose access to our PP, and the bump to Ally initiative, Cha for Insight/Perception, and we also lose Imperious Majesty's bonus to Initiative.

That last part is the easiest, we drop out the Tiefling racial feat and pick up Improved Initiative (retrain to Superior at 21st).  The bonus to Initiative is the same at 26-30, and superior from 21-25.  On the flipside, it's weaker most of your career (to be honest, most people will never see 21+) and you lose the minor attack penalty against you from Imperious Majesty, which is mostly a non-issue, as you'll rarely get hit.

The second part depends on your race choice, in part.  Obviously, you want a +Cha race, and any of them can function admirably with this build.  Any race that also adds Int is a Top-Notch pick, but really, you can handle the loss of the Int if you really want to.  Now, if you ignore racial PPs, there's two obvious picks, Cunning Prevacator and Talaric Strategist.  I favor CP for two reasons, Talaric has a weapon attack that you essentially waste and the bonus to initiative doesn't stack with your Combat Leader feature.  If you can use it, I also recommend Freedom Fighter (Slave Fighter theme article, Dr390).  The features are fairly similar to Infernal Eye, and you can take the PP even if you took another theme.  This PP is legal in LFR, even though themes aren't, according to a question I asked on the LFR Forum.

If you go with Racial abilities, there's a few more choices, I'll only name some that I'd consider worthy of taking instead of Cunning Prevacator.

• Adroit Explorer (Human) is always a strong pick with the extra AP
• Mithral Arm (Dragonborn) is decent for buffing yourself, but weak as a leader
• Chameleon (Changeling) is highly situational depending on your party, but the roleplay fun!

This CB Summary uses the Gnome and the Cunning Prevacator PP
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couple variants posted

For the Orb variant what about picking up a Multiclass (Wizard perhaps) to gain prof in Orbs that way? You pick up an encounter power and gain the orb training you need for the Orb of Int Cheese. This would just be the sub-16 build. I also thought about working in the Tiefling Init feat as well just to ensure I go first in encounters at the level 8 range.