Argentae

Plant/Storm is an awesome choice, one of my favorite builds and much fun to play. Arsenal/Storm is also a great choice. My current most-fun-to-play is Psinado, the Mind/Storm I built to try out the new Telekinesis mechanics. The changes in TK have fundamentally changed the set in ways that I think are best utilized by /Storm as Hjarki mentioned above. Both Tornado and Lightning Storm have small AOE attacks that benefit TREMENDOUSLY from having the whole spawn continuously clumped tightly together. It takes some care and practice to get the most benefit out of it, but it's totally worth it. 🙂 Mind/Storm was always decent, and the damage from /Storm helped Mind/ in the late game, while the single target control of Mind/ is second to none. Mind has a massive bag of tricks to pull from, and probably the best single target attack chain in the Controller Primaries. Also the king of zero aggo control, Mind is great fun to solo as long as you can add in good AOE damage. Gale with KB -> KD (Sudden Acceleration or Overwhelming Force) and Force Feedback + Rech is an decent soft control and pretty reliably gives you 5 seconds of +100% recharge if you use it on large spawn. In the Early to mid game I also slot 3 Dmg Procs which don't go off a lot on small spawns, but do quite a bit on large spawns given the tiny amount of end it costs, how fast it recharges and how effective it is at boosting your recharge. Happy to discuss more, but have to go do some things offline. I'm uploading my low cost build/leveling build for Psinado. Entirely capable of soloing +4/x8 spawns and leveled up largely on large spawns. Psinado 50 low cost Controller (Mind Control - Storm Summoning).mbd

On the way up, Gale with +Acc, KB -> KD, FF +rech, and 3 Dmg procs is surprisingly effective, esp till you get enough effective AOE attacks to fill a chain. In the final build I tend to remove the Dmg procs as I need the slots elsewhere, and I have more than sufficient global +Acc to render slotting for it redundant, so it's 2 slotted: KB -> KD + FF +Rech and spam it as roleki mentioned. Knocking the entire spawn on their butt is quite useful as a quick fire mitigation and triggering the +100 Recharge from FF makes quite a noticeable difference. In any case, it's far from the throwaway power than many assume it is. 🙂

Argentae: Mind/Kin was my original main on Live. I also like proving that under appreciated powers can sometimes be dang impressive. The original Argentae (Arg) is a build I played for many years. Most complex click intensive build, almost everything is fast fast fast... But when you're in the zone it's a rush of speed and capability. Mind/Kin may be able to do some BLEEP with TK and FS. I'll have to respec Arg and play with it at some point. The dynamic is different than with /Storm, but I think the synergy may be there, and Repel might even be useful for bouncing mobs into the TK hover ball of doom. Mind/TA is a tactical powerhouse. Enough AOE proc damage to do well, and a bag of tricks like nobody's business. Nothing gets to do much of anything (if you know how to play Mind and TA and ARE playing well!) that you don't want. Can handle at least three spawns, two of them fighting and one sleeping, and have a spare AOE hold to pull out if things go sour. And ST control to beat anyone. And some of the best debuffs to soften the spawn first chosen for "arresting". Great ST damage too. But then TK (a power I spent a lot of time investigating with my wife during her long ago attempt to play MMO's 🙂 ) got changed. I withheld judgement on the new version on beta, I could see the potential. The end cost in the beta was still the absurdly high cost of the original power, which I'm hugely glad they did change. They did something remarkable in the new TK. I think they meaningfully DID address some of the problems that Mind legitimately had in terms of leveraging containment. They also gave Mind/ one of the best. Dang. Positional control tools in the game. It may not be apparent to a lot of players, but the new TK is surprisingly powerful, not just for what it does itself, but for what it does for other powers. The devs introduced something new. A power that easily, quickly concentrates mobs VERY tightly together (like having a tank for clumping up mobs to make AOE powers work better), and keeps doing it for long enough to run a LONG AOE attack chain, AND adds a kick ass AOE attack at the end of the chain combined with knocking all mobs standing on their ass. There are powers in the game that do excellent AOE dmg in small areas of effect. Two of the best are Tornado and Lightning Storm. Tornado also excels at KB-KD keeping mobs bouncing. As does Gale. The New TK was BORN to make Tornado's 7' and Lightning Storm's 5' hit 5 targets just about every time when in Freezing Rain. I've played with moving Tornado and LS around in the chain to see how much effect they are having over time and they make a MAJOR difference if you bring them in early. Terrify has a -Res proc in it, and it's fast, so I might move it up front. It also does a boatload of damage. I have a slot in terrify waiting for the Immob proc when I remember to go buy it, which would be best at the end right before Levitate ends the TK. I'm still playing around with it, but my current attack chain is: Toggles: Steamy Mist, Combat Jumping, Hover, Evasive Maneuvers, Hurricane, if facing S/L attacks I'll also run Ice Armor. If I'm not facing much that's immune to sleep then Mass Hyp -> Snow Storm (SS). Can use this to trigger a delayed corner pull if I need to split spawns apart. Choose your anchor carefully (keep closer to you than the effect of SS, the idea is to ONLY apply SS to mobs that are slept) and you will trigger a slow speed run to your corner that piles them and makes many fall. Lead off with a strong AOE control and you are fine. Gale works great to buy you a breathing space for control if needed. In late game levels I don't need to do a corner pull as frequently. So... I may throw SS in early on to deprive the bosses that might be standing at the end of their biggest attacks, and reduce spread after TK drops. Domination (Dom) is 6 slotted with 5 dmg procs (including Unbreakable Restraint) and a Hold/End Ghost widow IO. Confuse is 6 slotted with Coercive Persuasion If Mass Confuse (6-pack of WotC) is up, which it generally is, I first use single target Confuse on each boss in the spawn. Then target a mob near the geo center of the spawn and hit MC and watch the puppets JUMP into action when you hit most of them with a hefty psionic proc and they beat the ever living snot out of each other. And occasionally buff or heal you. Shift target to a Boss, and hit TK. Timer starts ticking... Use Hurricane to shove mobs NOT sucked into TK INTO TK while working through the main AOE attack chain. Freezing Rain (FR) a bit past the spawn. You are likely to move them back slightly when you do a few things, so best to have more of FR behind the spawn so you shove them back into it. Tornado in center of spawn. Tornado will likely attack at least the boss you targeted. LS over your head. I love LS. One of the best combat pets in the game when you use it right. Great help in SS Corner pulls into FR patch with LS standing by to knock mobs down. Ice Storm (IS) (6 pack of Artillery for the Ranged Def and Acc boost, should probably change) on center of spawn, it will get almost all. Don't let FR lapse while Ice Storm is running if you can avoid it. Frost Breath. Does about 217 * 2 (containment) dmg * 1.5 (-Res debuff from FR with Achilles -Res ) with 5 pack of Ragnarok, plus the -Res Debuff of FR with the Achilles Heel added most of the time. Terrify does about 277 plus containment dmg (total something like 315) * 1.5 (FR -Res) with 4 dmg procs and one -Res slotted, I think I have an endred focused IO slotted that pairs with one of the dmg procs as a place holder for the Sup Froz Blast immob proc. Because Procs don't benefit from Containment Levitate. Watch it hit everything like a Mack truck for about 550 smashing dmg with a little Negative dmg from the Apoc proc (5 pack of Apoc + FF +rech) * 1.5 (FR) = ~837 in an AOE. It's glorious. Most everything is dead except the bosses. They may or may not be as depending on luck, type of Boss etc. They are probably still beating on each other. Keep one confused, and One held via Conf - Dom - Lev - Dom -Lev - Conf while throwing in another Tornado and LS as much as possible and keeping FR under their feet. If I've got enough storms going, and it's obvious the boss(s) are done for, I'll turtle up in Hibernate to refill everything. Hurricane will generally defend me for a sec when I burst out of the ice, and Gale will knockdown whatever's in front of me. IF MC isn't recharged: Total Domination (TD) (5 pack of Unbreakable Restraint, dmg proc is in Dom for ST use) I could Dom one boss (2 holds, so he's out) and work on Confusing the other while keeping everything bouncing. This works pretty well if I have a bind for Boss targeting, and spamming Gale helps me recover a bit and keep everything recharging at warp speed (about +270% global recharge as Gale with a large spawn almost ALWAYS hits the FF +rech proc and at those speeds Gale is up fast enough to chain kd most of the time). But I've also found that the above attack chain tends keep them off me till the end. LS tossing in KB causing 5' AOE lightning strikes every 5 sec or so helps keep things chaotic for the bosses. At the end of either chain, almost everything is dead except the Bosses, and... Well... Mind/Storm with all storms out and often stacked, and properly utilizing Conf - Dom -Lev with occasional AOEs can put out a LOT of dmg quick. The new TK: Huge win in my books. Especially when paired with /Storm which benefits so much from the ability to concentrate entire spawns into an ever tightening kill zone. Make sure to target a boss or durable anchor do NOT target a minion. Bosses by pref. Practice how long you can run the chain, optimize the chain to get the best advantage while giving yourself a smidge of cushion in case something goes weird. Hurricane and LS will help guard your back most of the time. Levitate as an AOE ROCKS. FF +rech seems to proc pretty well, but nothing else seems to proc enough to be worth it even with zero +rech slotted. Tried Build Up proc, doesn't proc nearly as well as FF =rech. I thought it would pop most of the time with a large spawn as I only need one hit like with FF +rech. Nope. Occasionally goes off, but not reliably enough to plan on. Slot it for set bonuses and raw dmg. Flying mobs with SS on them and a lot of KD are generally ok. War Wolves are a pain. Keep War Wolf Bosses confused as a high priority. Circle of Thorns are a sweetspot. I eat Thornhead maps on +4X8 as a snack. I need to try Carnies, Arachnos, and Rularuu for comparison with other builds. Overall impression: Prep with Confuse - MC and the plan is: Attack. in the top 1-3 Controller builds I've tried in terms of +4X8 spawn dropping speed. The definition of glass cannon with Active Defenses. Incarnate choices: Went with Intuition Radial Paragon, Reactive Total Radial Conversion (so far), and Clarion Radial Epiphany. Will probably go with Assault for Hybrid slot as more damage is never bad. Control might be helpful as it would immobilize well and then just stack stun and immob (everything is already afraid of Terrify and Tornado). Psinado Incarnate Controller (Mind Control - Storm Summoning).mbd

Current Endgame build attached below. I'll update this later as well. Controller CrystalStorm Rune (Arsenal Control - Storm Summoning).mbd

Temp post below. Had to move the draft text from my phone. I’ll edit the below and finish it later. Sorry for my long absense from the forums, lots of work and home landscaping project related complexity that saps my ability to spend time typing things up. The most recent build that I've taken to full completion has been the Ars/Storm I mentioned in another thread that I wanted to try in contrast to Ars/Dark to see which is objectively more powerful. Jury is still out on that comparison, as I haven't gotten back to any character but Crystal Storm (CS) for months. That fact right there says something about the subjective experience. I'm not sure that CS is more "powerful" than Dark Crystal (DC) my Ars/Dark character, but I will say I have enjoyed playing her more than than anything I've played in quite a while. I have NOT tried out how she does against A/Vs yet, been having too much fun fully optimizing the end game build. So I'm going to dive into my usual musings about playing CS, along the way I'll try to explain what I enjoy about playing CS, and what I have found useful. First off, something I've seen several times is people being underwhealmed with the damage of Arsenal Control, and I *think* I see at least one of the reasons it comes up frequently. A lot of the time people that are underwhealmed by the damage output are coming from experience with Arsenal Control as a Dominator rather than as a Controller. Containment damage really changes the way the set plays, and nowhere more dramatically than the pet. I call mine A-10 Killer Tank. Cause he is. Seriously. I'll get into the reasons below, but he gets containment damage, and it racks up WHILE improving his ability to tank the aggro. Arsenal plays different on a Controller, and has a lot of synergies with Controller secondaries that I suspect are missing with the Assault sets. I have not played it AS a Dominator yet, so this is speculation, but I've played Ars/Traps, Ars/TA, Ars/Dark, and Ars/Storm all into the the mid to late incarnate levels, and it's a good ride every time. Definitely above the Controller Primary average, every one soloed most of the way via X8 spawns at varying +1/2/3/4 levels depending on build and maturity. SO lets jump into Ars/Dark specifically. What do I love about playing Ars/Storm. Hmmmm... Well... To start with, it plays a bit like Ars/TA with more damage and survivability. To some of you, like Sandwich, that may seem like an odd statement, but I hope it makes sense by the end. :-) Strengths Indirect fire: CS is an indirect fire monster, this is one of the things that makes her play a lot like Ars/TA She's not as brokenly OP as Dionysus my Plant/Dark character, and occasionally some lucky hits will get through, or something unexpected occurs and I have to adapt on the fly. Nothing new for Controllers, but I built CS specifically with some toughness in mind, and she can generally take a hit better than most of my high def/-tohit based characters, and without using Earth's embrace to do it. She is very good at pulling back and regrouping when needed. Toughness: I have both Rune of Protection and the Destiny Clarity ability that rotate through as mez/status protection, and Rune is two slotted with the +Hit Point resistance unique and a 50+5 +res IOs. Shark Skin provides good Smash/Lethal/Cold resistance and I have Hibernate standing by to turtle up and let A-10 pull some aggro away from me while my hords of pet/psuedo pets do their magic. Dropping Tear Gas on the spawn applies a -20% dmg debuff to everything as well which makes my damage resistance much more effective accross the board. Hurricane applied roughly a -50 ToHit penalty and pretty close to prevents melee attacks Corner pulls: Does well, though not as well as /Dark. Snow Storm not being slottable for range is a headscratcher for me. Means I often use single target attacks to pull, as 80ft often is close enough for the whole spawn to spit hate at me at once, and it lacks the mitigation that Darkest Night brings to the table. On the flip side, Freezing Rain is great with Achilles Heel in it, and helps ensure everything gets hit pretty much every time while making proc damage do even more. Knockdown/Fish flopping: 1st tier fish flopping facilitator. Fire/Storm does well with Bonfire (+KB->KD) and FR, Oil Slick is like FR on steroid with it's damage component, I tend to think that /Storm has so much KD potential (KB-KD turns Gale, Tornado, Lightning Storm, and even Hurricane into strong KD sources), add in Nitro's KD patch and Waterspout's KD and there is a whole lot of mobs flopping on the ground instead of doing anything constructive to stop me. Momentum: I built CS with a focus on a lot of FF +Rech proc firing to boost my recharge, it works. Once I'm rolling, having a sudden X8 +4 spawn add/ambush droppped on me is almost irrelevant. Until I run out of End, I'm just piling on the hurt and mitigation on an AOE basis. Back is covered: A-10, Hurricane, and Lightning Storm(s) have got my back. It’s fairly common for a mob or two to get past my patches of doom and get behind me. I generally ignore them as Hurricane and my crew keep them busy, often killing them without my interaction. Gale: this is a diamond in the rough in the building. More on that below. A-10 / Tri-cannon. My new favorite Controller pet. Well behaved, tough as nails and does a great job soaking up an alpha strike or pull aggro off me. Excellent layers of different mitigation. Not a one-trick pony at all, unless that trick is just pseudo pets that do damage. When focused on a single target the raw damage output is substantial, esp with A-10 getting containment damage. Blind fighting: Similar to indirect fire, I can fight almost as well when blind as I can when I can see. Spawn bosses in the corner pocket: When the geometry supports piling bosses up in a corner, all the KD piling on them keeps them there pretty reliably while Hurricane locks them into a corner and unable to hit the broad side of a barn even when they aren't flopping. As Tornado, Lightning storm and Waterspout all do small AOE, tight packing is very efficient at taking them down fast. This is basically just /Storm being /Storm, but it's definitely a strength. FX: Giant Crystal! I love the fact that once I've spewed out all my pet/pseudo pets and the blue is running low, or when I've taken enough damage that preventative medicine is keeping me on my feet, I disappear into a giant crystal and laugh at their puny efforts to harm me. It's totally in keeping with the character, works better than on most builds. /Storm is always visually impactful. While I miss the targetting point on the floor provided by Tar Pit, it's still visually quite good. Weaknesses Endurance... Gasp... Gasp... recovery: This is a /Storm with a high +Rech build. Endurance is a default issue. I ran Vigor in the Alpha slot for a bit, but it's still not enough. Went back to my default of Intuition and built a lot of (sometimes clever) Endred into my build as well as all the normal Heal set uniques and use Hibernate as the quick recharge. Low Healing: O2 isn't the strongest heal, and Spirit Ward is more effective with A-10. I played with O2 in the build for quite some time but finally decided that the slot was better used elsewhere. I I wanted to pick it back up I'd probably drop Nitro. The lack of a self heal is addressed by the damgage resistance mentioned in toughness above, Preventative Medicine +Absorb, and the Giant Crystal of restoration (Hibernate)! No great +def (like Fade or FF generator) and the -ToHit being focused in Hurricane makes getting close to the def cap challenging, in fact I settled for less ranged def than I wanted because of the trade offs needed. No self buffs: /Storm, nuff said. Powers breakdown: Power Level Effect Thoughts Tranquilizer 1 Ranged, Moderate DMG(Toxic), Foe Sleep, -SPD Love it. Great blast and the side effect sleep allows it to slot the Sandman unique heal IO. Good ability to take procs, sleep will keep a trouble mob out of it for a long time in the right circumstances. I take it and use it heavily on the way up. In this particular build I ultimately swapped it out for Arcane Bolt to get to Rune. But that’s rare for my builds, I generally keep single target sleep as a blast. Straight dmg SOs till early teen then an Acc/Dmg and procs Cryo Freeze Ray 1 Ranged, Moderate DMG(Cold), Foe Hold, -SPD, -Recharge, -Fly Core power. 6 slot it and fill with 5 Dmg procs and a Hold/Dmg. Will do Acc/Dmg till I have significant global +Acc. This is the mainstay of your ST damage treat it as such. Sleep Grenade 2 Ranged (Location AoE), Moderate DMG(Toxic), Foe Sleep, -SPD, -Recharge, -Fly Solid AOE damage with useful secondary effects. Use AFTER Flash Bang for containment. I slot with a 5 pack of Posi Blast asap, then generally swap it out for an appropriate purple set. This is a damage power, not a sleep, treat as such. Procs are uneven in firing, I find direct damage works best. Liquid Nitrogen 6 Ranged (Location AoE), DoT(Cold), Foe Knockdown, -SPD, -Jump I also 5 slot this with Posi Blast on the way up, it does enough damage over its lifetime to make it worth it. Once I hit end game respec, this is a good one to leave at just the base slot and here that slot is 50+5 Endred. You still get the KD from the patch, and you have a lot of other things you need slots for. Cloaking Device 8 Toggle: Self Stealth, +DEF(All) L Smoke Canister 12 Ranged (Location AoE), Foe Confuse, -Perception, -ToHit Flash Bang 18 Ranged (Targeted AoE), Minor DMG(Energy), Foe Disorient, -ToHit Tear Gas 22 Ranged (Location AoE), Foe Hold, -DMG Tri-Cannon 26 Build Tri-Cannon: Ranged, DMG(Lethal)

Forgot to add I was surprised to find Snow Storm can’t be slotted for range. I always slot it for endred, but have been doing a lot of pulls with Darkest Night recently and was thinking about how much better it is with some +range slotted. Snow Storm + Freezing Rain pretty much floors the mob’s recharge, which combined with Smoke Canister’s confuse and Tricannon’s tanking, is really quite effective mitigation so far. Will see how that translates to tougher spawns later on. I do think -Rech doesn’t get enough credit as a mitigation for builds that stack layers of mitigation. -Rech and KB are two things that /Storm does very well. /Storm is also extremely good at positioning control, which meshes well with Ars/ patches focus.

Oops. Wrong thread post removed. Regarding the OP: once you get into incarnate, Hybrid /Control has an immob option which seems to work pretty well. Very late in the build of course. 🙂

I think I owe someone an apology on slotting of Gale, or another fast recharge AOE. I dug back through my posts, but the activity stream doesn't go back far enough. 😞 I was focused on the effectiveness of an AOE attack chain with /Dark(?) and dissed slotting a fast recharge AOE power because of the much greater chance to proc of long rech powers. I apologize for not trying it personally first. And not thinking through the impact of KB -KD + FF +Rech. Spamming Gale does have the opportunity cost of NOT doing other AOE attacks, but it's really good at filling gaps in the chain, and at only 7.8 end it's cheaper to use than Cryo (ST hold)! I frequently make a habit of specifically spending some time on the way up with powers that have a bad reputation, or are thought of as less than useful to see what can be done with creative slotting and procs. It's fun. 🙂 I tried dropping a KB -> KD and FF +Rech in Gale, because, well, why not? I added 4 damage procs because it was already dang useful, so again, why not? Test spawns: +1/+2 X8 Warriors, no bosses in Talos between about 25th and 29th level. Against a large spawn, even abysmally low proc rates happen fairly often. So, as a test on the way up with CrystalStorm (Ars/Storm) over the weekend (mid 20s leveling wise) I started slotting Gale with KB -> KD, FF + Rech, and 4 damage procs. Cloaking Device and Combat jumping active. I clump up the spawn first with a Snow Storm pull into Nitro patch while I bounce around the corner. Tricannon is a great benefit here, as it follows and starts shooting close mobs while I'm setting the Snow Storm anchor, grabbing most of the near aggro. Drop Freezing Rain in the center of the spawn after they are clumped, and then Smoke Cannister in the same spot. Everything is almost immediately confused and flopping. Step out from corner and hit the spawn with Gale. Almost always get a FF +100 rech buff. and while the damage procs rarely show up in floating damage numbers, one or more procs often enough to do pretty dang good damage for the 7.8 end cost. Pretty much the whole spawn fish flops too, which is both amusing and pretty effective mitigation while drastically reducing spawn spread esp with Snow Storm on. Flash Bang loaded up with Acc, Annihilation -Res, and 4 damage procs is next, followed with Tornado (KB -> KD) and Sleep Grenade. Then another Gale or three. I need to run the combat logs through a parser (Carnifax has one IIRC?), because it's hard to monitor for the FF +Rech buff while fighting, but manually scrolling back through the combat logs the procs are firing often enough to be dang useful. And the rech bonus of using Gale regularly with FF +Rech slotted is subjectively quite noticeable. I'll try this evening with bosses on, but the clear speed is excellent before Tornado has any meaningful damage slotting, and without even having Lightning Storm yet. The -def in Freezing Rain is such a godsend for loading up procs in AOE powers at lower levels. 🙂 Controller CrystalStorm 30s (Arsenal Control - Storm Summoning).mbd

A lot of the AOE damage is in proccing out Flash bang and Howling Twilight (though you can get the downtime on HT -Regen down to closer to 15 seconds instead of 30-35 for fighting AVs, vs having it optimized as a mini-nuke). They can both take a TON of dmg procs. It's a STUNNING (pun intended) 1-2 AOE attack. 😛 IME a 6 slotted Spirit ward is overkill for Tricannon, especially when you have Twilight Grasp and Dark Servant. With the +10 Res from the Exped reinforcement it's VERY tough. Completely second what Frosticus said about procs in Cryo and consider Tranq as well, both good ST attacks that benefit a lot from the dmg of procs not being tied to the AT damage multiple. It's a really fun combo!

I've actually started an Ars/Storm myself. I wanted to try out the combo of Freezing Rain with Nitro and all the rest of the KD /Storm brings to the table. I don't think it will eclipse Ars/Dark, but I like /Storm a lot as a set, and I think it will synergize well with Ars too. 🙂 Still only like lvl 18 in Hollows (I almost always do the Frostfire arc, and aim to finish it at about 20ish so I can hop straight to Talos, my favorite zone), so much to play with still...

I'm pretty sure we all have our preferences, there's a good deal of difference between soloing and teaming, along with a lot of difference in playstyle. I'd love to hear other's perspectives. I've learned a lot from the original Controller's forum, the old 'Control" channel and this forum, and I really appreciate it and the discussions here. Playstyle/focus: Personally, I enjoy playing with a good team a lot, but I also know that I spend a LOT of time doing things nobody else would find fun, as the complexity of controller play is a big part of what I love about the AT. I do a lot of testing things. I face plant a lot trying things that ultimately just don't work out in practice. I like to solo content at +4/X8 with bosses as soon as possible in a build, with X8 being higher priority than +4. My Tank had a lot of toggles, only a handful of powers in an attack chain, a lot of situational and self buff powers and was almost unkillable. Easy to play, and brokenly OP. Sometimes that's a lot of fun. 🙂 My Controllers generally have VERY long, complex AOE and (much shorter) ST chains with pet wrangling, complex situation mitigation tools, and a very low ability to survive a major mistake. Like driving a high performance sports car on a track, instead of, well, a tank. 😛 So, my personal main priorities in most of my Controller design. 1. Soloability. Anyone can solo. I largely soloed my original main Mind/Kin starting back at I-2 on live. Very slow. Almost no AOE, so small, higher conning spawns with no pets and relatively low damage. The game is built to favor AOE over single target, but single target damage is still critical for late game content. Pets help a lot with this. 2. Defense is my preferred focus instead of Resist, Controllers are just not built to take the best advantage of a resist build, except for Earth's embrace. Plus I have just always preferred no-be-there as a mitigation. Same thing with my Bladesinger/Paladin in DnD 5e. 3. -ToHit pairs so well with a higher def build it's pretty much a default for me as a focus. 4. Confuse is one of the best dmg buffs in the game as it turns the spawn on itself, mitigating incoming dmg WHILE damaging the spawn much faster. The massive discount you get on dmg done by other mobs for purposes of how much xp you get make it an amazing buff to xp over time. It also MELTS spawns, which is fun. 5. In wood working, paint can cover a lot of mistakes/weaknesses. In Controller design, Healing and pets are a bit like that paint; a powerful part of an optimized controller damage build that often lets you get away with some riskier (but often more fun) other choices. 6. Damage procs are a major way to bypass the low dmg multiple of Controllers, they also lead to some really interesting possibilities by changing what a power's secondary effects include. 7. Stacking multiple types of mitigation and having lots of tools available to deal with the unexpected is fun. In looking at my favorite build to date, I see most of the above reflected. My top builds, though I'm always revising a very subjective ranking. 1: Top is still probably Plant/Dark. Best AOE confuse power with amazing AOE damage, huge amounts of healing and regen, and a great combination of pets, team wide +Def and -ToHit. Just a powerhouse for soloing anything/everything. 2: Plant/Storm 2: Mind/Trick Arrow 2: Ars/Dark :: lots of balancing gestures :: Yup. It all falls apart at #2 and below as there are just sooooo many good/fun combinations! 🙂 What do you all like most about playing Controllers and what do you find yourself gravitating to more often than not?

I know others have a different reaction, and I understand their position. A lot depends on what you enjoy and how you play a build. Personally, I like the set a fair amount and I’ve now soloed Ars/Traps, Ars/TA, and Ars/Dark into mid incarnate levels (Alpha, Interface, and Destiny). It’s a good high damage set. I like them all, /Dark is the best, then /TA, then /Traps. All three took all the Primary powers. I 6 slot Smoke canister for confuse: Malaise then Coercive Persuasion. Sleep Grenade I treat as a dmg power with 5 Posi Blast then the purple Ranged AOE. It does good AOE dmg (not proc based) esp with containment set and after Soul Drain buffs my dmg output. Nitro is the same as Sleep Grenade on the way up, then single slotted in the end game. Flash Bang is a proc bomb, and followed by Howling Twilight which is the same. Good 1-2 punch that leaves everything stunned and heavily damaged. Tranq and Cryo are good proc based ST damage powers. Toss Twilight Grasp with Theft of Essence +end proc and 50+5 Heal/End into your ST chain and you and your pets get much more resilient while your end recovers. Tear Gas is amazing slotted for hold. Baz Gaze then Unbreakable Constraint. Haven’t look at using it for Proc damage, it’s awfully useful having it up for each spawn. (180 global Rech and 5 pack of Unbrk Constraint) brings it up before the next spawn. Standard sequence: I love the visual ease with which you can stack Tar Pit, Smoke Canister, Nitro, and Tear Gas. Makes it easy to set up, then pop Fade and trigger Darkest Night on a far mob (104’ range really helps!) for a corner pull to clump the spawn up when geometry supports. Let pets take what alpha there is and for the confuse to set in. Step out and hit the spawn with Flash Bang-Howling Twilight, then Hover in for Soul brothers (Drain and Absorption) then Dark Obliteration and Sleep Grenade. Hover out to 1/2 way between Fluffy and Fortunata, refresh the patches from the beginning under center of spawn, reset DN anchor if needed, and switch to ST on bosses making sure to keep AOE effects on them. Very effective. Smoke + Tear Gas then Flash Bang + Howling Twilight works well as an opener for maps where corner pull isn’t an option. Went with Control for Hybrid slot for the %immob chance which seems to be working. SOMETHING was keeping a +4 Infernal from running around last night! Will probably also try Assault for times when immob is not needed. I’ll probably crib some of the above for a Dark Crystal (Ars/Dark/Soul) chronology. I’m actually thinking of redoing the whole path up again on that build and documenting it this time. Good, fun build that aged well.

I think I’m probably going to do a chronicle on this build. It’s pretty dang good. Probably the second strongest Controller build to date for general soloing. I probably need to reoutfit Dio (Plant/Dark) and see how he compares head to head. Pretty sure Dio will still win, but Dark Crystal (Arsenal/Dark) is potentially number 2. Did the Glacia arc solo at +4 x8, and it wasn’t too bad when I was just Alpha slot incarnate. Did the first Maria Jenkins mission (Infernal) at +4 x8 with AV and succeeded first time through. Granted I used Lore pet and called in a favor to have Brawler help out. But Infernal was +4. And it just took some time. Lore pet didn’t last the whole time, but if I resorted Howling Twilight to focus on Rech instead of being a proc bomb I can have it up a fair amount more which would help. Might just add a couple 50+5 Rech, or possibly a couple of 50+5 Stun/Rech if they exist. May look at dropping Absolute Amazement purple set in with an extra +Rech. My global +Rech is currently +180 so looks like 48 sec Rech with full Rech slotting. 52 sec with 66% Rech slotted 54 sec at 53% (1 50+5 Rech IO) 64 sec at zero Rech slotting where I am now with it full of damage procs. Spamming Twilight Grasp helps too. I did not use any poison daggers temp power.

I think I may want to sit down and figure out a macro that switches on a TG auto-fire when I want it, while leaving Hasten as the system autofire slot. The impact of constant TG heals that help refill the end bar is amazing. I'm being very economical on recovery procs on this build as the slots are so tight, and Soul Absorption slotted with 5 Panacea and 1 50+5 Endmod is Very effective. If I get even one or two hits on SA I'm generally good on end... Until I walk into a room where almost everything fails to leave a body behind when it dies. 😛 Fortunata and Fluffy got a LOT more durable with constant waves of healing, as would be expected, and TriCannon became almost unkillable. The other thing I did to scrape slots was drop my Darkest night from 4 Dark Watcher + a 50 +5 Range, to two 2 50 +5 ToHit Debuff/End and a 50+5 Range. The +Range makes a huge difference, and Intuition Radial Paragon gives me more range and ToHit debuff.

Quite a bit of set based acc bonuses (+63 global Acc) and after a Soul Drain hit I'm flush with +ToHit for 30 sec, on a ~65 sec recharge (so slightly less than 1/2 the time). I took out the Kismet +ToHit from Shadow Fall, swapped it for the LotG +Def and haven't missed it too much. Could swap out one of the Neg energy procs in Tg for the Siphon Insight +16 ToHit if needed... I'm soloing +4 X8 pretty effectively without any acc slotted in Tranq, Cryo or TG. Granted I’m most of the way through Incarnate, Alpha (Intuition Radial Paragon Tier 4), Interface (-ToHit , Dimagnetic?, Tier 3) and Destiny (Clarion Tier 4). Overnight I was toying with the idea of 5 slotting TG with ToE +End, two 50 +5 Heal/End (Doctored Wounds and Numina IIRC), and the two neg energy procs (Nictus and Cloud senses). Would have to pull the two extra slots from Tranq and Cryo though, so it's just shifting a couple proc slots from one part of the ST chain to another. I've included the build I'm playing around with below. All sets are in place as shown in the build except live still has a 6th slot with another proc in Dark Oblit, Tranq has a 5th slot with the Sandman heal proc, and Cryo has a 6th slot with another dmg proc. Originally I was going to put a full 6 pack of Sup Frozen Blast in Dark Oblit for the AOE +Def. But I threw a 5 pack of Posi Blast + Bombardment Fire proc in while I waited on the market (6 Sup Frozen Blast are expensive). I really like the way it's playing now. Not sure I need the extra +Def in AOE, Fire, and Cold. Dark Crystal post 50 High Def Controller (Arsenal Control - Darkness Affinity).mbd