Carnifax

Congrats Standoff.

Grats again Fen. Well deserved altogether, you've taken almost as long as I am!

Bloody hell. Level 50 Forgotten Warriors (and their evil counterparts Re-offender & Jygsaw) everywhere. Guess I should really make that final push myself.

Great fun doing Numina with you yesterday too, even if you did aggro poor Jurrasik before I could try and make friends with him.

Storm / Dark is the obvious combo though. Dime a dozen! Darks damage is pretty poor, and Dark gets rubbish late powers (Torrent & Life drain. Bah!)

And Snow Storm & Freezing Rain combined is almost as effective as an immob anyway (plus Snow Storm slows how often they attack you) & gives you a chance to learn Hurric-herding to keep them in there.

Wormhole is handy in that its more accurate than most AOE controls, it doesn't have the penalty that GDF or other AOE holds & disorientates have. I'd probably still 2 slot it with accuracy but the second accuracy isn't a priority.

I've found a range very handy since you don't need (and shouldn't be in) Line of Sight to set it off. The extra range gives me the ability to hide around a corner / in cover and fire it off without getting shot due to the 2 second gap the mobs get to react.

For concept how about going nuts with Tornados? A Storm / Psi with Tornado & Psi Tornado!

Improved slightly in i8 with the reduced animation time of the first blast in the set. Plus you get a single target immob to keep choice targets inside Freezing Rain.

"Hiya Joe. We're just sitting around and drinking some wine, eating some cheese and catching some rays"
"Why aren't you in the tank"
"Tanks broken man"
"Well fix it"
"Oh, he-he. I only drive em man, I dunno what makes em go"

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Don't reword my words Archy. Controllers are relatively weak, we all know that, it even says so in the Game Guide.

The Controller is at the same time the weakest and yet the most powerful of the Archetypes. The Controller has few offensive attacks and possesses few hit points.

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That quote says that they're also the most powerful though.

Personally I find controllers to be probably the second most powerful AT in the game after MMs. Certainly they're the most interesting for me to play. Me trying to play a scrapper is one of the most pitiful sights you'd be likely to see in Paragon City. He got nicknamed "The Glass Landmine" by a PuG in the Hollows I died that much.

Nice Ninja-edit but too slow I'm afraid

I've a Grav/TA at the same-ish level.

Wormhole & Propel are the two most entertaining powers in Grav, IMO. Propel is slow but contained Propel is worth it. And its lots of fun. In teams I focus it on lieuts & bosses to avoid the "hey they've been defeated for 3 seconds" syndrome.

For me Wormhole has ended up being my primary method of AOE control. Solo I use it to set up a bunch in a corner so they're nicely grouped for debuffs. Remember, you can fire it off from cover which avoids the Alpha. In teams I use it either just as an AOE stun, placing it just in front of where they are currently. If its a big team I'm on I use it on stragglers & anyone attacking squishies to reposition them into the nastiest area I can find (say back into a Freezing Rain patch or Earthquake) or back beside the Tank / Aggro holder.

Wormhole has a smaller AOE than other Controller "secondary" control powers like Flashfire, but its longer lasting and more accurate. Like most AOE controls it shines with 6 slots in it (1 accuracy, 3 stun, 1 range, 1 recharge is my current slotting but you could drop the range or recharge for another Accuracy if you liked).

I find Controllers one of the most varied ATs in the game. At the higher levels on powerful teams you might a bit left out if the team are mowing down troops (I find by the time I've debuffed everything is dead), but when it gets dicey suddenly your AOE controls can save the day!

Grats Re-offender. Well deserved the pair of you for the duo-grinding you've been doing in the last few weeks!

Woo! Grats to both of you (I assume you dinged too Shieldy?). Well deserved both of you. Hopefully I'll see you during the week.

(Tee hee. I've just discovered that although work blocked cityofheroes.com they never blocked cityofvillains.com)

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Are you able to do enough damage? Thats the only concern I'd have with Earthies,

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I'm probably inviting you to flame me, but shouldn't a controller focus on control and leave damage to the damage dealers?

I know there are many out there that mislike this purist approach (eg the recent similar thread on tanks) but in some cases there's just no point trying.

As a new player, I slotted much of my earth powers with damage, but soon realised there was not much point and the slots were far far better used to slot acc or duration. Now the only power I have slotted for damage is Stoney, whom I'm thinking about speccing out.

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I wouldn't flame you even if I disagreed, I'd just disagree I see your point. And I agree 100% on a toon where you have a damage dealer or two to team with: Earth Control has insane amounts of control & combined with the debuffs of Storm they won't be moving or hitting or anything.

But those sessions where theres no teams going you don't want to be completely incapable of soloing either. Happens a fair bit to me. Especially in the late 20s / 30s on the European servers, it can be a bit of a solo slog sometimes.

If you're part of a regular team go the Control route certainly. But don't relay on being able to get PuGs at the drop of a hat and make the character unsoloable based on that, you may find yourself logging in for a few mins, unable to get a team and switching toons.

Sorry your night didn't go well Captain but I'll be up for some 8PM meet-ups alright.

Deceive is wonderful, especially solo or against mean looking enemies. On my Illusion / Storm I didn't take it until about level 35 though (because I'm thick rather than concept) so you can certainly survive without it happily enough.

On large teams (or when teaming with a scrapper who goes "Pah, enough of your sneaky controller ways" and jumps in) you won't use it as much.

Its super when an AVs mez protection drops and suddenly they snap into a Confused state and nuke their mates though, I always spend the pre-AV bit where people mill about and steel themselves for the fight spamming Deceive on the AV just in case the Purple Triangles go down.

Indeed. I can't figure out the current Damage Scalars on the two fireballs but the Epics are rated way higher than standard Fireball there too which is weird, and might explain the change.

The Controller hold lasts about 50% longer than the blasters too, does a Blasters Fireball currently do 50% more damage than a Contained Epic fireball?

Earth powers are accurate because they lower Defense for you as their secondary effect.

Quicksand debuffs Run Speed & Defense, it doesn't affect Recharge. It might be worth slotting for -Defense instead of -RunSpeed here (especially since you'll probably be stacking it with a Hold or Knockdown patch too so they'll be held or on their bums mostly). Combined with RI it could save you Accuracy slots elsewhere. Works well with the Vets reward powers (Sands of Mu & the Undead Slaying Axe) too.

Are you able to do enough damage? Thats the only concern I'd have with Earthies, and why I'd tend to take the single target immob with them, slotted with 1 accuracy & 3 damage. I'd maybe take AS & Fly too if you were still having soloing issues.

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Erm, nope. Tornado doesn't do Containment damage.

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... Um, if tornado doesn't do containment damage after this patch then why did it's damage get cut in half to begin with? I assumed because the reason for cutting the damage was because containment was supposed to double it, so I assumed tornado would now be affected by containment.

My first guess is PVP, because in PVE psionic damage isn't so unhinged it needs to be cut in half with no containment damage given to the power.

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I assume we're talking Psi Tornado since its epics? I'm nearly sure it doesn't do containment but I could be wrong

Thats a very good question Augury, I asked it myself somewhere, espcially since Ice Storm IS getting Containment (and no adjustment to damage).

The only time I've seen Psi Tornado used was by a PuG teammate who'd just picked it up and his comments were "Wow, its like a nuke!"

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By the by, there is a flaw in just halving the damage of say, psionic tornado. Even if this does keep it as strong as say a blaster nova with containment (I'm skeptical) consider that a blaster can just fire off a nova.

A controller would have to FIRST set up containment with AoE, which will easily take you a good 15 stamina. Then toss on psionic tornado. 40 stamina, and twice the activation time.

Think the devteam overlooked that little tidbit.

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Erm, nope. Tornado doesn't do Containment damage.

The two damages aren't supposed to be the same either Blasters are supposed to be better at dealing damage (even more rational for this fix), the Blaster can't mezz & debuff the entire group before Tornado / Fireballing / Ice Storming them without incurring a single hit. The Blaster is either gonna empty his End bar (nuke) or have a bunch of severly wounded but alive and annoyed enemies aggroed at him. The controller will have any survivors still mezzed and can start single-target holding & blasting them.

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Don't agree at all. The Epic Blasts shouldn't be doing twice the damage of things like Spectral Wounds in your primaries.

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Ah buh buh buh buh buhhhhh

Epics (precise term of course then) Ancillaries are meant to 'shape out' and 'fill in the gaps' of an AT, yes?

(Patron powers being amusing as they dont fill in the gaps for every of the ATs)

Controllers lack in damage! So the ancillaries do give them some hope of a bit more damage...


Chiefette

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Agree completely and thats how they were always intended, to give Controllers decent damage.

However when i5 came along with Containment the Epic damage suddenly went through the roof, especially for specialised builds & powers like Fireball.

Of course a few questions I have are :
1) How come its taken them 18 months to spot and fix this.
2) Why did they let Epics take Containment bonus damage in the first place?

Sneaking them into a post i8 patch was a bit odd too really. But its not ED or i5 so I'm not that worried or affected.

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Why else would they give controllers an inherent power that relies on damage?

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Because in i4 soloing a controller before pets was the most painful thing imaginable.

I've no quarrels with the AOE control in Grav, Wormhole is a cut down Flashfire on the face of it but the ability to relocate a group whereever you like too is wonderful.

Don't agree at all. The Epic Blasts shouldn't be doing twice the damage of things like Spectral Wounds in your primaries. Plus its Epics, ir only 9 levels of the game. For the previous 40 levels you're completely unaffected by the Epic Nerfs.

Plus my Illusionist, Fire controller and Grav Controller still has tons of AOE Control and all the single target tricks they always had. And they're widely regarded as the three "lesser control" options.

I play controllers & defenders almost exclusively. Compared to the useless damage Defenders do they've been lucky to get away with it so long.

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For info: I have no idea when Issue 8 will go up (or get done), as we're getting new windows put in over the weekend!

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OMG!!! Your base has windows? Hax!

Yeah but Ice Storm was pants beforehand. Fireball should still outdamage it DPS-wise.

All its getting is Containment bonus. Nice for people with AOE immobs alright. But it was so poor beforehand it deserves the bonus.

Hibernate is the real gem in Ice Epic.

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The All Dom team avoided this and the only requirement was that you had to be a dominator. Powersets were down to the player to decide. As a result we have had great fun and are continuing to meet on a weekly basis and this has been running since august. The mix of powersets really keeps things interesting for everyone IMO.

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Yep, I was thinking how you guys sorta prove the point nicely by mixing it up. For me a lot of the fun in teaming in CoH is having relatively unqiue powers on a team, even if they do the same sorts of things they all have little nuances. Plus you can do fun combos like one person Wormholing a bunch onto an Earthquake (my Grav/TA teams with a Earth/Sonics a lot), or into a corner for a Mind to Telekinesis or Terrify em!

Why do these teams always insist on everyone being mostly the same Powersets though? All anything is overkill. The game just isn't that hard. Like most of the "All one set" with the builds dictated flutter on for a few weeks (and clean up as they do normally) and then people get bored since they aren't unique. If I was to do this I'd want to pick my own defender sets & powers. Otherwise I may as well go play World of EveryoneIsTheSame-craft.

An 8 man Trick Arrow team would be an interesting challange though.

I agree, I got absoloutely creamed by Psygons Tornado in the 3vP event too, it completely eliminated any sort of protection I had.

It does have "effect does not stack" on the Tornado description. The description must be incorrect in some way I guess.

A super power in AV fights, especially against Infernal and his wretched Portal. Stunned demons everywhere.

The Defense debuff is only 15% on Tornado according to NoFuture, half that of Freezing Rain! I'd slot FR for Defense debuff instead, its the big hitter (I think both those figures are for the Defender versions though, probably about 12 / 24% for controllers).

I use it on my Illusionist as another Control power, slotting with Damage & Stun length nowadays.