Crazy Controller Tricks

Back on the official and forums we had a thread for Stupid Scrapper Tricks, i.e. seemingly impossible self imposed challenges that couldn't stop some scrapper champions. I haven't yet leveled a scrapper up to 50, but I do have a kitted out Controller and as I've just started my holiday I felt like taking on my first solo challenge on the Homecoming servers. I'm hoping I won't be the only one to do this stuff on Controllers, so I decided to create a thread for showing off our collective madness.

 

So, here's me starting the thread

 

Some notes on this particular challenge:

• Overall it was easier than I remembered, I did this once back in the day
  
• Biggest challenge seemed to be getting it done solo - some well-intending heroes tried to help me and thus forced me to disengage, wait for them to leave and the tentacle to regenerate
  
• The run is no insps/temp powers/deaths, but as the video is cut down to parts I'd guess the last part isn't technically 100% validated
  
• The video quality is kind of garbage thanks to my equally garbage editing skills, so apologies for that
  

 

While I don't have a self heal, Panacea proc was my MVP and brought me back up to 100% more than once. Then again, there weren't really any close calls thanks to my soft capped S/L/Ranged def. You might notice in the video that my PA isn't quite perma, but that should be fixed once I get my T4 Alpha. Also, my attack chain isn't gapless but this isn't strictly speaking a GM soloing build but rather something I call a team force multiplier restricted slightly by the character concept, and for the same reasons I have Spectral Interface rather than Reactive/Degenerative which would be better for this kind of stuff. Next up, maybe solo ITF?

 

Anyways, that's enough about that - I'm looking forward to your contributions!

 

Can't go wrong with Ill/cold. A more optimized "monster" build will greatly speed up kill times and ultimately, which AV's and GM's you can take down because a bad run is ultimately the undoing of /cold whether it be successive hits taken, or a couple misses with benumb/heatloss ruining you.

 

I think I was around 90 AV/GM's solo'd on my ill/cold back in the good old days. I don't have the checklist anymore sadly. But I'm slowly rebuilding the character :). I think the only one that really gave me fits was Lord Recluse, but there were probably others. With the addition of incarnates and some new IO's since then I doubt there is much that can stand in the way of an Ill/cold. Solo'ing some of the TF's is certainly within the realm of possibility. Dropping the mothership's shields is another fun one to push for as it can get pretty frantic.

 

I hope this thread keeps going.

In the spirit of keeping things going, here's my +1/x8 solo ITF finish:

 

 

EDIT: The image embed won't co-operate with me for whatever reason, so here's a link to the screenshot.

 

For those wondering about the final time, I didn't actually sit that long in front of my monitor but actually I did the TF over two days in 3 sessions, for a total of 2.5 hours. The time could be faster, but I didn't have any strats lined up before I went in so I took things slow and experimented with different stuff. Actual death count wasn't 0 but 1 which happened mostly because I hadn't thought up a strategy for Romulus Nictus and he ended up slapping me for that mistake. Anyways, a solo MoITF would definitely be possible.

 

Because the whole run took a while and I didn't record all of it as it would be 1) a pretty boring thing to watch completely and 2) to save HDD space, here's a highlight reel of the AVs, things that I expected to be tricky and stuff that actually ended up being tricky.

 

First mission was pretty easy, I rescued the sybils mostly with confuse because it's funny and I didn't want to deal with whole rooms at a time to speed things up at least a bit. I expected the Nictus ambush at the end to be difficult, but turns out

.

 

Second mission wasn't anything special. Some more confuse abuse and

.

 

Third mission had the second thing I expected to be difficult: the Phalanx, but

and were pushovers, but that's to be expected of any regular AV.

 

Fourth mission netted me my first and only death as I realized I didn't have the DPS to take on Romulus due to being unable to control what my PA are attacking. But once again,

and my strategy developed on the fly: keep Confuse stacked on Rommy to get that sweet Romulus August DPS for 20 seconds every 1 minute or so, Benumb on whichever Nictus Essence has the least HP and let Romulus whittle them down with the help of PA and Sleet. Most of his attacks appear to be cones / AoEs and because the Nictus stack up, he often damaged all of them pretty equally and after the first kill, he got the . Without his friends, .

 

Because I (ab)used Confuse so much during this run,

. Then again, I couldn't resist

 

All in all, a pretty fun challenge that didn't take too long to finish. MoITF is definitely possible, but I doubt I'll try that as with my current (very unoptimized) strats I had a couple of very close calls with Rommy and I'd hate to have the run end because of that. What next?

Just wanted to give kudos for running that!

Here's the newest thing: solo LRSF. I wasn't actually playing for 98 hours, I just had to scrounge up the time for this over a period of 5 days. Actual completion time is probably around 3 hours, but I didn't really keep track.

 

Anyway, here's the highlights and tricky parts:

 

First mission was definitely the easiest, just stealthing to some objectives and

. A single AV is nothing special for an Ill/Cold and I just confused the EBs to bash each other because I thought it was amusing.

 

Second mission wasn't much more trickier.

and even though I was expecting his summoned robots might make things tricky. Fortunately, they did a lot less damage than I remembered and I was able to whittle their master down while PA were distracted and distracting.

 

Third mission was the first one where I expected a lot of difficulty and it did prove to be the most tricky one in the whole SF. There's no real opportunity to "cheat" with Confuse and pulling them one at a time didn't appear to work, so after a few failed attempts at something tricky, I just decided to take an all out brawl and beat them all, one by one. I learned quickly to go for

as she'll heal and buff everyone else, as her Psionic attacks have the best chance at messing me up, Manticore third as he's the slightly more dangerous fella of the two that are left. Anyways, with their ladies gone, the were total pushovers. During the fight I did get a level up but I don't think it had much if any impact on the outcome.

 

For the fourth mission, I was also expecting the quad AV fight to put up some resistance, but because they lack a support AV, I knew I was in for an easier fight. A couple of close calls, but unlike the previous quartet, I beat these on my first try. I chose to

, mostly because she's a Psionic and has the best chance at hitting me. After that, there was no particular reasoning why I chose and , but I left purely because that and defeating the others first reduces the number of threats on the field permanently. After that, it was time to take on Miss Liberty who I was afraid would put up a big fight mostly because I lost the Orestes Rifle and couldn't remember if it was critical, . What does that thing even do?

 

Finally, it was time to take on the current Freedom Phalanx. Because there are way too many of them for me to safely engage the whole bunch at once, I tried pulling them one by one but couldn't get that to work. Fortunately, I had discovered the art of Confuse during my solo ITF and I decided to replicate that strategy here, and damn,

I let Penny whittle the squad down to herself, Synapse and Babs at which point it seemed appropriate to engage them. Keeping a couple of stacks of Confuse on Penny she gave me a hand at demolishing . After all her hard work, it was time to and claim my solo LRSF completion!

 

For me, this was a particularly interesting run as I had only ever done LRSF on the official servers a handful of times and then once on Homecoming. My lack of knowledge on the Orestes Rifle (for real, what does that thing do?!) shall be a testament to my inexperience when it comes to this SF.

 

After the solo ITF the build has seen some adjustments:

• I adjusted some slotting and got an additional Recharge bonus
  
• I also got T4 Alpha which puts me just above Ranged soft cap and perma PA as opposed to just below with T3
  
• I crafted a T3 support hybrid, but I never activate it in the run, however the passive bonus might help me a little
  

 

EDIT: I didn't keep track of the total death count, but it was about 5, all at the hands of the future Freedom Phalanx and in addition to that there were numerous close calls that I only barely survived in all of the multi-AV fights. So, while I think a solo MoLRSF would be possible if you have a good initial approach to the future Phalanx, so much is down to chance that it's not a run I would find fun to attempt.

  I'm really impresses with what you're accomplishing and it's made me want to try out the illusion/cold build instead of my scrapper/brute normal creations. I know that you're not into posting your build but will help with build help or ideas from previous responses on another thread and that's what I'm looking for...an idea or suggestion as I want to build for a style that suits my playstyle.

 

  My question is kinda multipart, so first part my beast guess is the goal is perma on hasten, PA and heatloss, then followed up with softcap defense vs range.....am I correct in this thinking? Second part, travel powers...while I would normally pickup combat jumping for the added defense to slot some defense unique's in there would that mindset still be the way to go here. The rest I can figure out as I play but I just wanna make sure I'm on the right path for the goal.

 

 

Thanks for any advice/help you can give

 

Doc M

My question is kinda multipart, so first part my beast guess is the goal is perma on hasten, PA and heatloss, then followed up with softcap defense vs range.....am I correct in this thinking? Second part, travel powers...while I would normally pickup combat jumping for the added defense to slot some defense unique's in there would that mindset still be the way to go here. The rest I can figure out as I play but I just wanna make sure I'm on the right path for the goal.

 

 

Thanks for any advice/help you can give

 

Doc M

 

Disclaimer: take anything I say with a grain of salt as my build / power ratings are tuned around my playstyle and my goals.

 

To start with build priorities, I'd put them as follows:

[*]Perma PA. This is the cornerstone of the build as it allows you to solo the tough things that would otherwise splat you like a fly. PA needs roughly ~320% worth of recharge enhancement to be truly perma (recharge + cast time = duration), which can be achieved with 95% enhancement + 130% global recharge + 70% Hasten + ~20% from Alpha for a total of 315. Heat Loss and Benumb need a similar amount of global recharge to be perma, so you get all of these for getting perma PA, as well as being able to stack Sleet for more -Res than a /Rad can ever do. PA likes -Res.

[*]Soft capped S/L Def. This combined with perma PA allows you to avoid a vast majority of incoming damage. I'd estimate roughly 3/4 of the attacks in the game come with a S/L component, so between PA tanking for you and 3/4 of attacks having a 5%* chance of hitting you, you're already very safe. This is also pretty easy to achieve as between some +Def pool powers, Arctic Fog, an APP/PPP shield and the two +3% Def uniques, you won't even need any S/L Def set bonuses.

[*]Soft capped Ranged Def. Before Incarnates were introduced, I ran my Ill/Cold with soft capped S/L and perma PA which was enough to do a lot of silly things, but with their introduction, I realized it was possible to add soft capped Ranged Def to my build. Remember that 1/4 of attacks not covered by S/L Def? Ranged Def covers pretty much all of them. Most attacks aimed at you that don't have an S/L component are pure elemental blasts (Fire Blast, Gloom, Lightning Bolt, etc.) and soft capped Ranged Def takes care of all of that for you. Essentially, you're only left defenseless against pure elemental AoEs and some psionic attacks, both of which are relatively rare.

 

That said, perma PA is definitely far more important than the two other goals, though small gaps (<1 second) aren't really a huge deal as you can still do pretty stupid challenges especially if you have one or two varieties of soft capped Def to back you up. I don't think it's imperative to have both soft capped Ranged and S/L, I just went for both because it was possible and it allows me to push the envelope slightly further when it comes to doing silly things with a Controller. Still, just having one of those (or even just perma PA) will allow you to do more than an "average" high end Ill/Rad can, as most Ill/Rad builds I've seen don't have soft capped defenses.

 

As for travel powers, I'd just pick whatever you like. On the official servers, I used Hover+Fly (concept reasons and 3D movement is useful), here I'm using Mystic Flight because I wanted Arcane Bolt (concept reasons). Besides creating a strong character, in my opinion it's important to keep in mind that you want to enjoy playing it and travel powers can play a surprisingly big role in how the gameplay feels.

 

When it comes to powers, these are what I'd rate as must haves:

• Illusion: Spectral Wounds, Blind, Confuse, Phantom Army, Spectral Terror, Phantasm
  
• Cold: Ice Shield, Glacial Shield, Arctic Fog, Benumb, Sleet, Heat Loss
  
• Pool powers: Hasten
  

 

Stuff I'd strongly recommend:

• Fighting: Boxing/Kick can mule some useful sets, Tough gives you a free slot for one +3% Def IO and Weave makes it significantly easier to achieve soft capped Def
  
• APP/PPP with S/L shield: pretty obvious, but this makes achieving S/L soft cap trivial. I'm using Scorpion Shield because it's pretty, on the official servers I had Frozen Armor because I wanted another blast and Arcane Bolt wasn't an option
  
• Leadership: Maneuvers nudges you closer towards Def soft caps and it also stacks nicely with your shields and Arctic Fog to help your teammates. Tactics is nice, but not essential. Other Leadership powers aren't that useful for an Ill/Cold.
  
• APP blast or Arcane Bolt: you can't tell PA what to attack especially when there are multiple targets around, so you'll probably want another single target attack in addition to Spectral Wounds to help you focus fire opponents.
  

 

Combat Jumping and Hover are also useful for the slight Defense, combat movement and set muling opportunity. If you're going for SJ/Fly, these are pretty good picks.

 

Then, we get to IO sets:

• S+ tier: Contagious Confusion and superior Will of the Controller. Full set of either gives you +10% Recharge and +5% Ranged Def.
  
• S tier: other purple sets with +10% Rech bonus, LotG +Rech
  
• A tier: +3% Def uniques, sets with both +Rech and +Ranged Def such as Expedient Reinforcements, Red Fortune, Basilisk's Gaze, Stupefy, etc.
  
• B tier: anything with just decent or low investment +Rech or Ranged Def like Decimation or Blessing of the Zephyr.
  

 

Finally there's a bunch of unlisted items that come down to preference, like the various +Stealth IOs (combined with Arctic Fog = PvE invisibility), Achilles Heel / Annihilation -Res procs (I can't really give a quantified answer how much these help in Sleet with the current PPM rules), damage procs in your personal attacks, and so on.

 

Let me know if there's anything else you'd like my opinion on.

  Thank you, that's gives me what I'm looking for. I had a good idea on some of it but others I was off on, but now the fun begins.........building and playing/testing the build to find my style for it.

 

Again, thank you for the help it's very appreciated.

 

Doc M

 

Fantastic advice.

 

An additional reason you will want a solid personal attack chain is because illusion features heal back on a good number of its damage sources. If you defeat something before that kicks in then the damage you deal is very high by pretty much any standard.

 

dps vs an AV for ill/cold is very respectable (even without factoring in -regen). dps vs a boss that you kill before healback is extreme.

Fantastic job, Dsorrow!

Can I ask a dumb question? What are you actually using to deal damage? Just the PAs + spectral wounds and maybe arcane bolt or APP attack?

Now that I am 39 and have my basic powers (Fire/storm) MUHAHAHAHAHAHA.....

 

Getting into a smaller space, hallway in a warehouse or office building, dead end cave, sometimes even a bigger spaces, and have 10+ mobs in the air bouncing off the floor, walls, ceiling, and objects in the game world like popcorn because I have unleashed, flashfire, tornado, lightning storm, and bonfire.... with friends and/or in a large space I of course use firecages to keep things contained, by myself (or with a small number of ranged friends) I let lose and use what can only be called CHAOS control as I laugh maniacally and my imps run around taking tasty bites out of all those nasty bad guys..... *IF* and I mean only *IF* things look like something might be able to actually stand upon its feet and think about starting an attack I can always use Gale - though for the most part it really blows.

 

With the Immob changes Fire cages + Gale is actually pretty nifty..... it does KD instead of doing nothing with the immob now. Can keep knocking a group over if they are being a problem.

Can I ask a dumb question? What are you actually using to deal damage? Just the PAs + spectral wounds and maybe arcane bolt or APP attack?

 

PA, Arcane Bolt and Spectral Wounds. Sleet does a pittance of damage, Interface appears to be bugged to do less damage than it's supposed to be and Phantasm is too suicidal to deal significant damage against most AVs. The damage sources don't really sound impressive unless you consider all the -Res /Cold has access to: stacked Sleet, Heat Loss and any potential Achilles' Heel / Annihilation -Res procs which can double the damage you deal. That combined with Benumb that can at least partially deny the opponent from regenerating HP allows an Ill/Cold to do pretty extreme effective DPS.

Now that I am 39 and have my basic powers (Fire/storm) MUHAHAHAHAHAHA.....

 

Getting into a smaller space, hallway in a warehouse or office building, dead end cave, sometimes even a bigger spaces, and have 10+ mobs in the air bouncing off the floor, walls, ceiling, and objects in the game world like popcorn because I have unleashed, flashfire, tornado, lightning storm, and bonfire.... with friends and/or in a large space I of course use firecages to keep things contained, by myself (or with a small number of ranged friends) I let lose and use what can only be called CHAOS control as I laugh maniacally and my imps run around taking tasty bites out of all those nasty bad guys..... *IF* and I mean only *IF* things look like something might be able to actually stand upon its feet and think about starting an attack I can always use Gale - though for the most part it really blows.

 

With the Immob changes Fire cages + Gale is actually pretty nifty..... it does KD instead of doing nothing with the immob now. Can keep knocking a group over if they are being a problem.

 

That sounds hilarious. I've been wanting to make a Storm Summoner for a while now. Had one on the official servers, but didn't really like my powerset combo (Storm/Archery Defender, IIRC) and the lack of KB->KD IOs basically made many of my powers unwanted in teams. Guess I should give that Dark/Storm Controller build a second thought.

Props on the solo LRSF!! Witnessing Penny's WTF damage as an ally in the Malaise/Mother Mayhem mission, where she can basically solo them in a couple minutes, always made me wonder how far would Confuse get you. And now thanks to you we have the answer. :D

 

The Orestes Rifle reduces Miss Liberty's damage output significantly - damage, tohit, I'm not sure how she is affected exactly, all I know is without Orestes Rifle meleers go splat against her, and with it she's a meek kitten (same goes for Doc Aeon in the STF and the power of thorns, same mechanics). Obviously, you don't care about any of that as an illusion controller. Yum, PA.

I figured it had to be something to do with her offense, but PA doesn't indeed care about that. Speaking of Dr. Aeon, I contemplated trying a solo STF but currently it seems that Captain Mako is pretty effective at stonewalling me. I set up an AE mission with all 4 signature villains and LR at lvl 54 to test things out before actually committing, and here's what I found out:

 

Ghost Widow is annoying. She has quite high resistance to Psionic damage so beating her took forever.

 

Scirocco and Black Scorpion didn't really put up much of a fight, it took a while to beat them because of the level difference, but it was much shorter than GW.

 

Mako's Elude spamming stonewalled me. With the floored hit chance, I just can't deal enough damage to beat him between the Eludes. The fight also becomes more down to luck as PA can't hit him either and consequently they can't hold his aggro. I might revisit this thing with big yellows and Lore pets later on and see if they're the missing piece.

 

Didn't try Lord Recluse or Dr. Aeon, but they might prove to be a pain in the butt because of their summons. I remember trying and failing against LR back in the day, but I can't remember if my build was Ranged soft capped at that point or not so this might be worth a try. The pylons in the actual TF, though, might make it impossible because he's going to hit me and probably kill me in one hit every time I resummon PA if there's any residual damage left on me from his minions or previous attacks. Doesn't he also have some kind of DoT in some attacks?

 

Ugh, maybe a solo STF just isn't in the books.

Im finding this thread more useful for ideas building and slotting up my ill/cold than another one i was reading which derailed pretty fast. Shes only lvl 16 atm but seeing some of these videos is getting me excited :D. I also don't power level and try to run just content so it may be a while. 

 

Excited to see what other tricks you all have up your sleeves  ;D

I figured it had to be something to do with her offense, but PA doesn't indeed care about that. Speaking of Dr. Aeon, I contemplated trying a solo STF but currently it seems that Captain Mako is pretty effective at stonewalling me. I set up an AE mission with all 4 signature villains and LR at lvl 54 to test things out before actually committing, and here's what I found out:

 

Ghost Widow is annoying. She has quite high resistance to Psionic damage so beating her took forever.

 

Scirocco and Black Scorpion didn't really put up much of a fight, it took a while to beat them because of the level difference, but it was much shorter than GW.

 

Mako's Elude spamming stonewalled me. With the floored hit chance, I just can't deal enough damage to beat him between the Eludes. The fight also becomes more down to luck as PA can't hit him either and consequently they can't hold his aggro. I might revisit this thing with big yellows and Lore pets later on and see if they're the missing piece.

 

Didn't try Lord Recluse or Dr. Aeon, but they might prove to be a pain in the butt because of their summons. I remember trying and failing against LR back in the day, but I can't remember if my build was Ranged soft capped at that point or not so this might be worth a try. The pylons in the actual TF, though, might make it impossible because he's going to hit me and probably kill me in one hit every time I resummon PA if there's any residual damage left on me from his minions or previous attacks. Doesn't he also have some kind of DoT in some attacks?

 

Ugh, maybe a solo STF just isn't in the books.

 

I wonder if you basically have reached the limit of Ill/Cold? It seems like damage is your issue now and Cold only really provides -res. It seems like the whole of /Cold benefits are Freezing Rain and Benumb with the odd cameo by Heat loss.

 

One thought I have is I wonder if 2x Lightning Storm and 2x Tornado stacked on would make up from the -regen of Benumb? Assuming 94 AV health regen and purple triangles a Benumb is at bringing that down about 65% so maybe 60 'DPS' from Benumb. Those Storms and Tornado's DPS would collectively be in the hundreds.

 

I know such a build would be more fragile but it seems like the only path forward.

 

Be interesting if the Devs fixed Bolas' incomplete unique animations and implemented the Utility belt Power pool. Would give Illusion access to a reliable single target Immo. 

I think that a +3 Captain Mako just happens to be a particularly unsuitable AV for my build. As a +3 AV he resists all the -Def, Slow and -Regen I do to such a degree that they might as well not be there so I don't really have anything in my toolkit to counter his Elude, make him use it less frequently or prevent him from regenerating while it's active, so basically it seems we're locked: I get him down to whatever the threshold is for Elude activation, he pops that and regens back to some point, rinse and repeat. That said, large yellow insps or Lore pets just might make the difference, so I'm going to try and find the time to try those this weekend. I do feel like Lore pets are maybe a little bit cheaty, but then again if that's what it takes to solo Mako I might be compelled to do it.

 

The /Storm idea sounds quite interesting and I'm not sure if /Storm actually would be much more frail than /Cold if built similarly for Defense. Steamy Mist = Arctic Fog for the most case and besides Benumb, /Cold doesn't have any other significant survivability tools. Against large groups /Storm is definitely going to be better with the stacked Tornadoes and Lightning Storms just knocking everything over constantly.

 

I kinda want to try a fully kitted out Ill/Storm now...

I did DPS calculations for soloing AVs back on Live, and, counting -Regen as equivalent to DPS, it seemed that the highest DPS characters were a Storm/Sonic Defender and a Demons/Storm MM, both times because Tornado/LS do more than 100 DPS once you stack them. This beats a permanent Regen shutdown... but when you combine them with the -Res from Sonic or the Corruption attacks from Demons, that 100+ DPS goes well over 200+. So, statistically, a /Storm will average better than a /Cold.

 

However, as AV level goes up, they "resist" damage just as they "resist" debuffing due to the level difference. You're doing 60% debuffing or 60% damage... except that the AVs also resist -Res debuffs in the same way. So you're only getting 60% of your usual -Res debuffing, lowering the multiplier on Tornado/LS's damage.

 

So what happens is that /Storm > /Cold on +0 AVs (where I did my calculations). As you increase the levels, your -Regen debuffs are lowered by about 10% per level difference. But your DPS from Tornado/LS are lowered by 10%, PLUS their bonus damage is lowered by another 10%. You're definitely putting out a good amount of -Resist from Freezing Rain, regardless of whether you have a primary that does -Res or not, so you're losing more DPS as a Stormie than as a Cold. I'm not sure where the breakpoint lies, it may even be higher than +4, but it's certain that Storm starts out a lot stronger than Cold against +0 AVs, but drops faster as the AV level goes up.

 

In addition, /Cold is better against GMs since their Regen rate is much higher. As a note, though, /Storm is better against Mako or other AVs with very high defenses since Tornado is auto-hit and it's a large chunk of your "-Regen equivalent".

I did DPS calculations for soloing AVs back on Live, and, counting -Regen as equivalent to DPS, it seemed that the highest DPS characters were a Storm/Sonic Defender and a Demons/Storm MM, both times because Tornado/LS do more than 100 DPS once you stack them. This beats a permanent Regen shutdown... but when you combine them with the -Res from Sonic or the Corruption attacks from Demons, that 100+ DPS goes well over 200+. So, statistically, a /Storm will average better than a /Cold.

 

However, as AV level goes up, they "resist" damage just as they "resist" debuffing due to the level difference. You're doing 60% debuffing or 60% damage... except that the AVs also resist -Res debuffs in the same way. So you're only getting 60% of your usual -Res debuffing, lowering the multiplier on Tornado/LS's damage.

 

So what happens is that /Storm > /Cold on +0 AVs (where I did my calculations). As you increase the levels, your -Regen debuffs are lowered by about 10% per level difference. But your DPS from Tornado/LS are lowered by 10%, PLUS their bonus damage is lowered by another 10%. You're definitely putting out a good amount of -Resist from Freezing Rain, regardless of whether you have a primary that does -Res or not, so you're losing more DPS as a Stormie than as a Cold. I'm not sure where the breakpoint lies, it may even be higher than +4, but it's certain that Storm starts out a lot stronger than Cold against +0 AVs, but drops faster as the AV level goes up.

 

In addition, /Cold is better against GMs since their Regen rate is much higher. As a note, though, /Storm is better against Mako or other AVs with very high defenses since Tornado is auto-hit and it's a large chunk of your "-Regen equivalent".

 

As a Pseudo Pet Lightning Storm also has a massive accuracy bonus. So both Lightning Storm and Tornado should be good versus high defence targets.

On the pylon thread there is a plant/storm controller who managed a 2:10 time, which was fricking amazing considering blasters and (some) scrappers weren't getting close to that.

On the pylon thread there is a plant/storm controller who managed a 2:10 time, which was fricking amazing considering blasters and (some) scrappers weren't getting close to that.

 

Yup, I'm not surprised... Storm > Cold when you're fighting AVs at +0 at least up to +2. Probably +3, maybe +4.

Well, at least in DPS output. Pre-incarnate, with Storm not having a great +Recovery power like Cold, maintaining a constant attack cycle is hard due to End management when you have to constantly put up high-End powers like Tornado, LS, and Freezing Rain.

 

In my charts, Controllers were by far the highest DPS against AVs. Wait, not by far... the highest, but MMs and Defenders weren't all that far behind. The "damage ATs", however, were far behind. The reason is that DoT and stackable -Res powers helps more in longer fights, while the up-front damage of Blasters helps more in a 10-second spawn beatdown. For sustained DPS, Controllers are great... for burst DPS, they're terrible. Blasters are great in burst DPS, but only average in sustained DPS.

 

For sustained DPS by a damage character, I would expect Stalkers to be ahead of Blasters and Scrappers.

On the pylon thread there is a plant/storm controller who managed a 2:10 time, which was fricking amazing considering blasters and (some) scrappers weren't getting close to that.

 

Yup, I'm not surprised... Storm > Cold when you're fighting AVs at +0 at least up to +2. Probably +3, maybe +4.

Well, at least in DPS output. Pre-incarnate, with Storm not having a great +Recovery power like Cold, maintaining a constant attack cycle is hard due to End management when you have to constantly put up high-End powers like Tornado, LS, and Freezing Rain.

 

In my charts, Controllers were by far the highest DPS against AVs. Wait, not by far... the highest, but MMs and Defenders weren't all that far behind. The "damage ATs", however, were far behind. The reason is that DoT and stackable -Res powers helps more in longer fights, while the up-front damage of Blasters helps more in a 10-second spawn beatdown. For sustained DPS, Controllers are great... for burst DPS, they're terrible. Blasters are great in burst DPS, but only average in sustained DPS.

 

For sustained DPS by a damage character, I would expect Stalkers to be ahead of Blasters and Scrappers.

 

Seems strange that Plant/Storm beats Grav/Storm or Ill/Storm. Unless you can get a ton of Creeper Vines up (the proc nerfs hurt as well) I can't see the Vine Trap beating PA and Phant or Grav's strong ST rotation.

 

I like Storm so much because it seems to have such a high 'ceiling.' You see to trade Endurance drain for extra damage. Things Ageless and Mu PP Power Sink can effectively improve your damage.

 

Once it gets perma PA (or close to it) /Cold sort of 'maxes out' whereas the more recharge you get as Storm just keeps on upping your damage more and more.

On the pylon thread there is a plant/storm controller who managed a 2:10 time, which was fricking amazing considering blasters and (some) scrappers weren't getting close to that.

 

Yup, I'm not surprised... Storm > Cold when you're fighting AVs at +0 at least up to +2. Probably +3, maybe +4.

Well, at least in DPS output. Pre-incarnate, with Storm not having a great +Recovery power like Cold, maintaining a constant attack cycle is hard due to End management when you have to constantly put up high-End powers like Tornado, LS, and Freezing Rain.

 

In my charts, Controllers were by far the highest DPS against AVs. Wait, not by far... the highest, but MMs and Defenders weren't all that far behind. The "damage ATs", however, were far behind. The reason is that DoT and stackable -Res powers helps more in longer fights, while the up-front damage of Blasters helps more in a 10-second spawn beatdown. For sustained DPS, Controllers are great... for burst DPS, they're terrible. Blasters are great in burst DPS, but only average in sustained DPS.

 

For sustained DPS by a damage character, I would expect Stalkers to be ahead of Blasters and Scrappers.

 

Can't find that post, but the overall AT top DPS is Street Justice/Super Reflexes stalkers. Over 600 DPS, Pylon dead in under a minute.