Mercurias

I don’t really feel like Gravity lacks control, but that may just be me. It doesn’t have a sleep or confuse, and it takes a little longer to get it’s truly good stuff, but once you have it then Gravity is a strong all-rounder controller these days.

I’ve clocked a lot of hours on my Grav/Time Controller, and I haven’t really noticed a *lack* of control or support in the character. Lift and Propel on their own are ST attacks, yes, but I frequently use them to juggle bosses while on teams. In terms of AoE Control, Wormhole is up and good to go every other mob when teaming. Good secondaries to pair with Gravity are /Time and /Dark.

In a fit of insomnia-inspired creativity, I slapped together a rough Gravity/Radiation/Primal Dominator build in Mids that looks like it holds the elements of a fun character. Has anybody tried this combo? I feel like I have a pretty good grasp of Gravity Manipulation from my Grav/Time Controller, but the /Radiation Assault part is new to me. On paper, at least, this looks like it would work well. Slot a KB-to-KD IO into Wormhole, yoink a group of enemies with said Wormhole, pop Crushing Field to Immobilize them, hit Fusion, and go off the chain with ultraviolent and slow-animating attacks in melee range.

My Dark/Dark/Primal with Super Speed and Leadership is weirdly both similar and different to yours, Avilister. I didn't push the proc route as hard as you did, and as such it has less damage overall, but I like its overall versatility.

That’s an excellent point. There aren’t many Dominator Secondaries which directly affect their primaries in the way that, say, Kinetics affects a Controller Primary (With a few exceptions, like /Psy, /Atomic, and perhaps /Dark). With Dominators it’s a bit more like saying, “Okay, so which would you like to see twice as effective with a side-helping of blasts?”

I have a friend who plays a Kinetics/Energy Defender, and I have seen her do this to herself right before dying. It was hilarious, but the point is well-made. I find this to be a fairly rare occurrence, but I’ve experienced it enough to aim Transfusion towards an enemy that is either locked down with a mez, already knocked down, or has KB protection as a precaution when I can.

It sort of depends on what you want. i personally find that Gravity is a stronger choice for Controllers. It gives access to some solid ST attacks before level 10 to allow for an easier time soloing (often Controllers don’t get decent single attacks until their epic pools). Also, its Intangible is a strong control which work should on bosses even without Domination. Gravity Control is still very GOOD for Dominators, please don’t get me wrong, but I feel like Controllers get more out if the set. Dark Control is already extremely powerful for Controllers, but in my opinion it’s probably broken for Permadom Dominators. The Super-high recharge needed for Perma benefits Haunt greatly, enough to make it permanent as well. Likewise, it lets you make incredibly good use of Fearsome Stare to lock things down en masse extremely quickly with a recharge of probably around twelve seconds (compared to the roughly 40-45 seconds needed for an AoE permadom Hold). Also, being able to confuse bosses with a single application of Possess can save you loads of headaches in combat.

I dunno. I’m sort of the opinion that it’s fine as it is. Not every Blast set is going to be Fire Blast. i see most of a Blaster’s secondary effects as “Extras”, you know? You can slot to try to make it more effective, and you can certainly stack your Interface to double up on it (Like using Preemptive to help increase the end drain, or Diamagnetic with Dark Blast for extra -ToHit), but outside of a few specific powers, Electric Blast is mostly a blast set. I always figured that its defining features (for blaster damage) were its ranged nuke, its hold, Short Circuit, Ball Lightning, and Voltaic Sentinel. I also thought it often benefited strongly from the Elec Secondary to round out its attacks, since it comes with a mix of ranged and melee. Also from what I recall, for most of its existence on live didnt Thunderous Blast only eat half of your Endurance? Am I imagining that?

Ice/Energy was one I played a lot, too. No cones, but Boost Range made me able to blast faces from a long way away. I loved having a ranged nuke. Man, now I want to play Dark/Energy...

It really sort of depends. I don’t have loads of experience with the Mind primary or how procs work with specifically Dominate. My gut says to go with Spiritual for your Alpha if that won’t affect your proc math (I’m dumb when it comes to understanding proc math, y’all) or Vigor if it will. Spiritual boosts recharge AND healing. Vigor will just boost your healing, accurate, and end reduction. For your interface, I would choose Diamagnetic. It reduces the enemy chance to hit your allies, so you’d be giving out extra support for your people as well as helping yourself survive a little better. For your Judgment power it really doesn’t matter. Just pick whatever nuke you think looks coolest or hits things the way you like to target the things and you’ll be fine. I like Pyronic just because it fires off extremely fast, but there is a lot of love for Ionic because it hits more targets.

Concerning powers that are okay to skip, I would say the four that most come to mine are Shadowy Binds, Shadow Field, Heart of Darkness, and Black Hole. Shadowy Binds is a ST immobilize which deals some damage and has a fast recharge. There isn’t a lot about this power to hate, but frankly there isn’t a lot about this power that I especially love, either. It’s only value is as an attack, and to make it a useful attack would take more enhancement slots than I’ve ever been willing to put in it. I had Shadowy Binds briefly while leveling, but used a respec to swap it out after getting past level 10. Shadow Field is a pretty nice power that is punished by a 240 second recharge time. For me, that’s just too long to be feasible, and in my opinion that makes this power a hard pass. Black Hole is an AoE enemy intangibility power. It’s sort of fun to play with, but it will often only make your Scrappers and Brutes cranky while they wait to crunch up whatever you’ve shunted in there, and I would just as soon use Fearsome Gaze instead. I usually skip this buckaroo. Heart of Darkness is a PBAoE Stun with a fairly long recharge (my build has it down to 45 seconds). I don’t like PBAoE Mez powers on controllers as a general rule (I like having the option of being able to fire them off from range), but this particular Primary/Secondary combo can use it well. Heart of Darkness can stack its magnitude with the stun in Howling Twilight, enabling you to both revise your entire team from a wipe AND stun any enemy up to the level of a Boss. It also ends up being a useful power to fire off after using Soul Absorption. Of the four, I have Heart of Darkness 2-slotted as my level 49 power choice. It works well there for the investment.

I’m with Carnifax in recommending you go with Primal for your Epic over Fire. Power Boosted Fade is fantastic. For example, my own setup using it gives 25% global Defense. Combined with a high recharge build and 20% Defense (which is rather shockingly easy to build for on controllers if you’re willing to sink in the time to grind for ATOs), you can be softcapped out of the gate before even using a -ToHit debuff. For my other powers in the Primal Epic, I chose Conserve Power and Energy Torrent. Conserve Power is a circumstantially useful tool in times when you find yourself getting hit by a Malta Sapper or things go wrong and you’re trying to come back from a wipe, and it only requires its base slot to perform that function. Energy Torrent with a Knockback to Knockdown proc in it serves pretty darn well as a control in it’s own right. You could probably go with Power Blast instead of Energy Torrent, and I tried it, but usually any time I had the option to make an ST attack, I elected to se Possess instead. It’s probably just a matter of preference.

My only problem with the Blaster version of Ice Patch is that it’s a PBAoE, at least according to what I remember (and Paragon Wiki when I checked). I could certainly be wrong, and if I am then that would up its solo capability immensely. Freezing Touch is also a solid hold except for the need to be in such close range, and for what Shiver is, it isn’t a bad power. This is likely just a matter of personal preference, but I tend to only appreciate slow effects in CoH when their purpose is to keep enemies away from me. In that, needing to be in melee to use said control powers feels a bit counterintuitive to how I play the game. in teams where a Tanker/Brute is drawing enemy attention or Controller/Dominators have enemies largely mezzed down, I feel more emboldened to step into melee as a Blaster and use powers like Ice Patch as an extra support layer. That was sort of where I found a spot in my playstyle for Ice Manipulation back on Live when I rocked a Dark/Ice Blaster for a while. I kinda miss that Dark/Ice. He was pretty fun.

Energy Blast probably underperforms when it comes to damage, but with the right build it's also really fun. I feel like the fun factor outweighs the lack of damage, and especially so for Defenders because they tend to have lower base damage anyway. My FF/NRG Defender is extremely fun to play. Sometimes his damage is like hucking a pool noodle ad Fort Knox, but that's fine. I have Force Bolt and zero reservations about knocking that boss over again, and again, and again, and again...

Okay so I got curious to see what a Plant/Time controller could to at 50 with proc setups and Primal Mastery, so this is what I game up with. You need to click Power Boost before hitting Farsight, but the result should be a 21-22% global defense + 25% from Farsight after Power Boost, resulting in 46% Defense to all, which is the softcap. The build could probably stand to have a little more recharge in order to make everything perma, but I'm okay with where it sits, overall.

The whole "Controllers at 50 are irrelevant" thing is largely a product of Incarnate powers rendering control a bit moot. things die too quickly from barrages of Judgments and Nukes for Mezes and controls to have much effect. This makes people lean more towards Corrupters, who can nuke and blast while offering similar support to controllers. Your build looks pretty solid! My only comment is that you could probably get more out of Farsight if you picked Primal Mastery rather than Leviathan Mastery. Power Boost will pump the numbers given out by Farsight way up, allowing you to focus on other things in your build while softcapping. Water Spout is a great power too, and it's personal choice, but I figured it was worth mentioning at least.

I did that initially, then decided there weren’t enough force fields. I scaled the defense back on purpose, because I’m a dork. 😛

I would personally take Power Mastery over Dark or Soul Mastery. Power Build Up paired with Foresight can have a massive effect on your survival, or the survival of your buddies. i have a friend whose Time/Psy Defender uses both Power Build Up and Clarion Radial Epiphany with their buffs to give a permanent 47% defense boost to the entire team. I find that much more worthwhile than Soul Drain.

I enjoy /Rad more than Ice, but you’ll be a solid controller with that setup. Typically when playing a character like that, I would lay down the -ToHit debuff first, then follow up with Ice Slick, then the AoE immobilize to keep enemies locked in place and juggled. Keeping close enough to make enemies affected by Arctic Air is also a must. For harder targets, Enervating Field is there to tank their resistance. Lingering Radiation is a great AoE -Res debuff. Accelerate Metabolism is a fantastic buff, and your daughter will be able to make good use of it for a Scrapper.

I would say that Ice/Energy is a nice way to go. A friend of mine had one on live which was a solid ST Blaster. Anything that made it through the firing line ate heavy melee hits.

I find Assault Rifle, Psychic Blast, and Electric Blast the most difficult to solo with as a Blaster. -Assault Rifle suffers from problems landing hits due to its damage type, long animation times, and comparatively low damage. -Electric Blast has high endurance costs, a largely ineffective secondary effect for blasters which doesn't mitigate much in the way of incoming enemy attacks, and comparatively low damage. -Psychic Blast has long animation times, fairly low AoE, and its damage type means that the high number of robots in this game are going have massive resistance to your entire primary. For Secondaries, I feel like Ice Manipulation is probably going to be the bottom of the barrel, with an honorable mention to Ninja Training. -Ice Manipulation relies way too hard on soft control, which won't actually prevent enemies from attacking and especially won't prevent enemies from attacking often enough to kill a Blaster. Its level 38 capstone is an AoE sleep, and not just any AoE Sleep, but one that requires you to be in melee to use. -Ninja Training has the same issues with damage typing as Assault Rifle, and the same issues with incredibly weak control that Ice Manipulation has. Its main saving grace is that you can slot a LotG: Global Recharge IO with it, which alone makes it more useful than all of Ice Manipulation by comparison. I would say that an Assault Rifle/Ice or Assault Rifle/Ninja Blaster would be the hardest Blaster combo to solo with, overall. Not enough damage, not enough control, not really enough anything.

What if, and follow me here, your character was originally from Primal Earth and summoned to Praetoria?

Thank you for taking the time! I'll check in tomorrow!

I think it depends on your power selection and playstyle. My Grav/Time Controller went for the Assault Hybrid. It already has strong controls and softcapped defenses, so added more damage felt like the right place to go. I could see a controller that wants to go up close for powers like Time's Juncture, Hot Feet, and Seismic Smash might use the Melee Radial Hybrid that grants extra defense and mez protection. It might be fun to play a Dark controller that uses the Control Radial Embodiment. They already have Fear and Immobilize powers baked into the primary, so it would essentially turn your Hybrid power into an I-Stun-All-The-Things button. I would totally play that.

Set bonuses separately, because that post was getting a little long.