Carnifax

Bah. Grav/Kin are a dime a dozen.

Real men go Grav/Trick Arrow

Me, me, me.

It took me 2 years & 450 hours to get there so I gotta be on this list

Carnifax : Illusion / Storm / Ice Make-unholy-mess-troller

Choking Cloud i'm not sure on since your pet comes with an automatic repel, although once Singy starts attacking someone he doesn't move about much. I've found Grav is a great ranged controller so you mightn't find CC as useful as a Fire would.

Wormhole & Lingering Rad combo probably means you don't really need Crushing Field too much, slowed stunned minions won't get very far (I use Wormhole > Glue Arrow in the same way and am planning to drop CF because of them). Crushing Field can get you unwanted aggro too.

I love Propel but am semi-debating if Lift would be slightly more flexible with the quicker animation time. Wondering what the DPS difference would be.

Always use Wormhole from cover as it doesn't need LOS for either the targetting mob or the destination. Wornmhole into a corner followed by AOE immob or slow and the Rad toggles. Playing "Its Raining Men" with mobs outside is always fun too by Wormholing em straight up above you.

Singy is probably my favourite troller pet (I've imps and Phanty on other toons). Lead him to a doorway to block, stay at the side and Wornhole mobs from the next room nice and close. Any you miss will try and get you but meet Singy enroute and be repelled and attacked. He can't be healed but he'll like AM a lot (who doesn't)

Spectral Terror comes with an accuracy debuff of about 15% which isn't to be sneezed at. Its not slottable with acc debuff enhances though unfortunately. Still its a nice AOE control power with an accuracy debuff that only needs 3 or 4 slots altogether (acc & fear).

Flash comes in handy with Ice Storm & Fulcrum Shift for AOE containment damage. Still you've gotta 6 slot it and that mightn't be worth it for one power at 47.


Personally I wouldn't spent slots on Fly, you don't use it in combat so the End Mod aren't needed if you've got Stamina. And like you say Fly is never going to be the fastest power so I never add extra Fly Speed slots to it.

Nems need stacked Deceive / Confuse for it to take effect. Two applications vs Mins & Lieuts I think.

And the best reason to confuse Tsoo Sorcerers is to stop em healing their allies rather than start healing you and to reverse their annoying Hurricanes.

Char, Flashfire & Cinders should all be 5/6 slotted. 2 acc, 3 hold for Char. 2 acc, 3 DisDur and 1 recharge for Flashfire and 2 acc, 2 hold and 2 recharge for Cinders. Flashfire should be slotted over Cinders though, its a much better power.

Hotfeet doesn't really need slows, it only affects Run Speed and you'll have Snow Storm to further slow them to a crawl and Fire Cages to stop em dead. It also is your most damaging power with Containment from Fire Cages so I'd put in 3 dmg and a few End Red.

Smokes Accuracy Debuff is tiny, not worth slotting for IMO, just throw one Accuracy in and its fine. Good power for Imp Wrangling. Ditto with the Defense Buff from Steamy Mist, its tiny too, just slot for Dmg Resist & End Red.

Hurricane has a massive Accuracy Debuff (almost 10 times that of Smoke!!), I'd go 1-2 End Red and 3 Acc Debuff in it.

Freezing Rain should have 3 Recharge in it, its your monster power in Storm. A few Def Debuffs can be handy and removes the need for Tactics. Again the slow doesn't really need slotting as you'll be Caging those in it anyway.

Tornado is worth getting for Cages synergy too, with a few Damage in it if you can squeeze it in.

Personally I don't think Assult & Tactics are much use. You'll be stripping Defenses with Freezing Rain & Tornado anyway and the End costs of the toggles could be a bit much.

Only toon I had it with was Carni (Ill/Storm) and she's about the same in terms of damage. She was Primal too so the damage was incidental. Switched back to Ice now and I do notice it on Ice Bolt but Ice Storm is about the same (I don't have many aoe containment powers). For my upcoming Controllers it means I won't be just taking Fire automatically, theres actually a good 3 or 4 way tie of what will suit the toons playstyle.

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You stole my grats thread I posted this at the same time, DAMN YOU.

*cough*

Yeah so um, grats again

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Oh bugger, sorry Cyn. Didn't see it this morning when I went looking, was coffeeless and my brain wasn't working properly. Silly Carni.

Sure they can have one thread each

Congrats to Sigh and Boston Firewall (aka Psygon and ExtraGonk) on dinging 50 last night by taking out Battle Maiden. Well done guys!

So whats next then?

Cheers folks. Yep, about bleedin' time really.

That said the last few levels flew thanks to all the great teams going recently. Very rare that I logged on as Carni in the last two weeks or so and not gotten a great team.

Cheers to everybody on the team last night, loads of fun and a great way to hit 50, rescuing Statesn00b twice within 20 minutes. He gets kidnapped more than Jack Bauers daughter!

And ta to everybody I've teamed with in the last 2 years, I love you guys *breaks into Oscar-acceptance-speech style tears*

I found my original Kin/Elec defender build was quite melee-ish with Short Circuit, Air Sup & the Vet reward attack. And no stamina so you have to stay close to benefit from transfusion and transference as well as to buff your teamies with Siphon Power & Fulcrum.

You get mezzed a bit but sure thats part of the fun

Earth/TA falls foul of the Oil Slick bug with the pet. Since he's mostly melee (and you want him in close being a meatshield) the pet panic Oil slick arrow induces would be a right pain, he'd trundle away in panic every time you flame it up and won't re-enter the area effected.

I'd say Kin too as it lets you boost your damage, the +recharge of siphon speed works well with all the AOE control you get and it greatly improves your pet with SB, some damage bonuses and the mob based heal. Plus Earth powers like Quicksand do -defence, handy for hitting with the Kinetics powers.

/em Threadomancy

Just hit level 35 and gotten my Oil Slick arrow & bind working. What with the Sing and now this suddenly the playstyle has changed completely from "skulk about and pick things off" to "Wormhole em into a corner and then AOE immob, Oil Slick flambe em with the taser, disruption arrow & acid arrow and stand there cackling"

The bind I use is

/bind numpad0 "target_custom_next Oil Slick$$powexec_name Taser Dart"

Mmmm. Toastie.

Was thinking Primal Forces suited the toon better but will I be able to resist contained Fireball? Or the Ice Epic & Ice Storm maybe.

Still haven't seen one other Grav/TA on Defiant since creating this thread. Loads of fun though! If you're bored and want a nice, busy controller give it a whirl

Another Controller alt DW? Time to join Altaholics Anon

6 slot PAs, for sure. I go 3 damage 3 recharge. Its much more useful than the Pants-asm at 32. I'm a stormy though so I have lots of -defense powers. 1 acc, 2 damage & 3 recharge maybe for thou.

Spectral Terror recharges really fast anyway, think its basically perma out of the box and you can only have one out at a time. Take some of the recharge slots and put into Blind which is your most important Illusion power. ST probably only needs 3 slots, 1 accuracy & 2 fear. Blind ! go with 1 acc, 3 hold, 2 recharge, you might try 2, 2 & 2 though.

You only really need one invis imo. For a support char I'd go Group at 30 with 3 recharge. The defense bonus is miniscule, 2.5% to 3.75% so I never slot for it.

Flash is also pants unless you 6 slot it I'm afraid. I'd say skip it for something else maybe at 38. Otherwise it'll take ages to recharge, miss a lot and only hold for 6-10 seconds.

Can't help with Empathy though I'm afraid. /em Bones : Dammit DW I'm a troller not a doctor

Plus in the 40s AV mission teams will adore you if you're Illusion/Rad. Especially cowardly tanks in the Clockwork King mish

I got bored of Fire/Rad by level 38 in PvE. There was absolutely no challenge. Just Smoke, RI, Flashfire, cages, EF and run in and hotfeet them to death...

Its the reason I switched to a Grav/TA, keeps me busier.

Yep Lightning Storm could really use Containment. It's not mobile like other pets so generally unless you're fighting an EB or AV or defending something it only gets a bolt or two out.

Didn't know Bonfire does Containment too actually. Slotted up and used with spammed Fire Cages it might be worthwhile. After the i7 knockback changes I dumped it.

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RoF + Char + RoF with hotfeet beats SW + Blind anyday

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No it doesn't, when soloing. Ill rad probably kills quicker even after imps, but not after fulcrum

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Depends on what you mean by soling. With Fire/Rad you can take on huge spawns of blues, whites & yellows : Hazard Zones are a must. With Illusion you're better off taking smaller bunches of yellows+ as PAs get a bit distracted with large spawns.

Swings and roundabouts really.

Deceive is a great early tool for Illusion, especially solo. Don't skip it!

The reason I prefer Dark to Kin solo is that (a) Your Fulcrum Shift isn't as uber solo. (b) -resistance is better that +dmg when you are facing enemies who are strongly resistant to your damage types. (c) Dark is a much stronger defensive set than Kin which relys on healing up the damage as you take it. Dark you don't get hit at all (wonderful against strong mezzing/debuffing toons like those wretched Tsoo Ink Men)

They're my two favourite Defender primaries though. Kinetics I don't like solo mainly because I know how amazing it is in teams! It's sort of like a crime not being in a team!

Overall though if I was making an absolute soloing toon I'd go Rad/Sonics I think, Rads AM & general jack-of-all-trades debuffs makes it a decent soloer. (Dark suffers from poor accuracy, Kin from poor defenses).

One interesting thing with Deceive & AVs is that although Purple Shields protect them, once the shields drop they get hit with all Deceives still in duration at once. I've often stood deceiving the Clockwork King whilest the team assembles. His shields drop and suddenly he psi-nukes his minions

It took me about 30 levels to spec into Deceive. Idiot that I am.

One of my SG teamies has a Kin/Dark with Group TP for scaring the [censored] outta me and getting us all nice and close for Fulcrum Shifts. Makes for Interesting Times alright Best duo I've been in though, Kin/Dark & Fire/Rad controller.

Siphon Speed can be annoying on its own getting about, you need an enemy to fire it off to get the speed boost and when you're entering a new zone it can be quite tricky, especially in Hazard Zones when its a massive bunch of Red mobs.

I really noticed it on my Dark/Kin corrupter entering Sharkshead. He's still dying to hit 28 and get IR.

On my Kin/Elec I initally took Air sup & Fly and played him in close a lot. I respecced into taking IR & using Siphon instead, but I've left out Stamina and make do quite happily with Transference to keep my End up.

Theres a law that you HAVE to take Haste with a Kin though, for the sheer lunacy of triple stacked Siphons & perma-Haste.

Thats true, and it lacks a proper powerful 3rd blast or Aim to bolster it up bit.

The debuffage is quite good though. About 10% accuracy debuff (9.35ish according to http://coh.nofuture.org.uk/powersets/). Thats per blast. They DO stack with each other and themselves, unlike some debuffs, but are short lived, about 8 seconds apiece.

Fills in the gap in Kinetics (no Accuracy debuffs) pretty well and the damage boosting powers of Kin help it along too.

The two AOE cones, Tentacles and Nightfall for sure. Tentacles is a wider cone than nightfall so generally its close for tentacles then back a bit to fire off Nightfall (Kin is great for this with Siphon Speed). Tentacles is the best power in the set though.

Gloom is better than Dark Blast, even though its DoT.

The snipe is optional really, but Dark does get it earlier than anyone else.

Dark Pit is skippable. You need 6 slots to make it worthwhile so its a costly one and any controller can do its job 100 times better (the stun duration is pants).

You won't need Torrent (urrgh, knockback) or the heal-blast really (since Kins heal is 1000s of times better).

I found Dark Blast opens well but the higher powers are a bit lacking. One of the reasons I gave up on my Dark/Kin corrupter was the lack of decent powers between about 24 and 35.

Kin / Elec is a lot of fun. You do become a bit of a buffbot and you'd better have a decent machine to avoid high-speed rubberbanding. It's fun doing Transferrance > Short Circuit though. Since Kins can skip travel and / or stamina powers you can have a very flexible build too.

Dark / Elec is a funny combo. i've a Dark / Sonics who's a debuff monster and she's got quite powerful single-target attacks eventually once the -DmgResists start stacking up. Endurance is a bit of a problem but she's a lot of fun.

The problem with Dark / Electric Blast attacks is that End Draining is an all-or-nothing attack. Just Short Circuit alone without a powerboost will basically wipe half an enemies End, which is useless. You need to wipe it all to be effective. Otherwise they just shoot you.

Indeed. Its one of the reasons all-controller teams become so nasty, one does a mass-containment power and all benefit from it.

A */Dark Defender is a great teamie for a Controller too, for the same reasons (Tentacles & Dark Pit).

I've found creating a new tab with just Damage Inflicted helps here too. You should easily be able to see if you are Containing enemies and thus inflicting extra damage here.
I use it to see how much damage I'm throwing out and also how effective things like +Dmg or -DmgResist powers are in combat. Really handy for my Kin/Elec and my Dark/Sonics defenders too.