Argentae

Exactly. Absolute blast to play with KB -> KD in the right powers. IIRC I did some slotting specifically to keep the costs on Tornado and LS down to reasonable levels. My Plant/Storm chronology has some excellent Endurance management on the /Storm side so I might be conflating the two.

Strong vote for Plant/Dark. See my chronology thread currently a few down from this thread for a set of builds and some idea of what it plays like. Very strong, very durable. The combination of all the Def, Res, -ToHit, and Regen AND healing in /Dark combined with the Regen of Spirit tree makes the three Pets very tough and your teammates even tougher if you throw some Twilight Grasp in yourself. Excellent on a Team, Excellent solo. I’ve played pretty close to all PRI and Secondaries on Controllers as well though there are obviously lots of combos I haven’t tried yet. Plant/Storm is the second strongest, Plant/Dark is the strongest. Also a lot of fun to play with a lot of flexibility once it’s fully mature. Fighting pool is not needed. My current build listed is .1 second off perma Hasten and has Perma Fade, Perma Soul Absorption, Soul Drain and Howling Twilight about every 60 sec so about 50% heavy self damage buff and regen neutering on an A/V. Howling Twilight hits like a Mack Truck with 5 damage procs in it. Autohit, Stun, -500 Regen, heavy -recharge with a 25’ radius targeted AOE that happens to be a full team Rez. 🙂

Dio dinged 50 last night and today I went through the initial end game respec and scavenging run through alts to pull together a full set of the sets needed. Currently running Vigor Total Radial Revamp in Alpha (Tier 3 Heal, Acc, Endred, Confuse) slot and Reactive Total Radial Conversion (75% Moderate Fire Proc) in Interface slot. Might change Interface to Cognitive to maximize the Confusion, but the extra damage is probably more useful. The build below is how he's currently configured on Excelsior, this may be almost the final build, though I might tweak things if I decide he needs more damage output. Specifically I may change Carrion Creepers from the Posi Blast set to proc heavy configuration like Veridicane runs (was recommended on the Veridicane Plant/Storm Chronology thread, and works very well). I have an overabundance of +Acc, but for now I like it, it gives me a cushion for high def to hit mobs, or if I get tagged with a -ToHit debuff. So how does it work? Spectacularly well. My strongest Controller to date, even better than Veridicane. He may not do as well with A/Vs though, as he lacks the extra single target damage that /Storm brings to the table. Spirit Tree is a huge part of what makes it work so well. a CONSTANT +330 Regen aura that overlaps for +660 is an amazing safety net when you have multiple pets. If things get dicey just keep summoning the 5 pets (including Spirit Tree and Carrion Creepers) when they are up, Darkest Night on a central mob and everyone confused. Throw some heals if you get nervous, so far I almost never need to. I'm running at +4 X8 with no strain, barely notice the difference between having bosses turned on or off. Takes a small amount more time, but the Tripple Threat Pet corps does a good job chopping remaining bosses down, and if I did a good job clumping the spawn up, they go down fast beat to death by a LOT more Vegetative tentacles. Except Carnie Master Illusionists. Their phasing is annoying. I shift to single target Strangler <-> Entangle when I see them. Recharge and key cooldown rates: Sitting at 191.3 global recharge which puts me at .1 second shy of perma Hasten, perma Soul Absorption, 2 seconds short of perma Fade, perma Carrion Creepers, and Soul Drain is up every 68.4 seconds, so it's generally available every spawn. Howling Twilight with 5 damage procs in it is also available in just over 60 seconds (61.8), so also part of the every spawn attack chain. Fortunata is unavailable for 10 seconds if I'm paying attention. Combat Plan Alpha: The Staged Ambush The Triple Threat Pet Corps really works well together, Fluffy does a great job of debuffing the spawn and healing Fly Trap and Fortunata. Spirit Tree fully slotted with a 6 pack of Preventative Medicine helps all three of them stay on their feet surprisingly well. Starting with a Fade buff for the whole crew I can generally corner pull the +4 X8 spawn into a Tar Patch using Darkest Night with Spirit Tree next to the Tar Patch center, and the pets will go around the corner and take the full alpha strike from the spawn with little trouble. I wait until the spawn is packed as tight as they are going to get, then zip around the corner (Hover + Evasive Maneuvers ROCKS) and hit them all in the teeth with the Wine of Madness (SoC) -> Roots -> zip into as close to the center of the melee as feasible (often popping up and then down to get into the center if there is a hole), -> If the spawn is not fully in the Tar Patch drop another Tar Patch at my feet (definitely sometime before Howling Twilight) -> Soul Drain -> CC if it's up -> Dark Obliteration -> Roots -> Howling Twilight -> Roots -> then start hitting bosses with Strangler and Entangle. I will probably add additional Combat Plans to this post over time, I think it's a nice way to illustrate just how the build plays. It's very rare that I use Twilight Grasp myself, but it's strong when I need it as it's at +118% Heal and it recharges in about 2.5 seconds. Odd things I do with slotting: 1. I 2 slotted DN with 2 Range IOs (100 ft), try it with these pets, you need the distance to do the attack sequence the way I describe. 2. I slot Tar Patch with 1 Slow IO to help with the clumping of the spawn, it recharges in about 27 seconds with my base recharge, and it's one of the first things in my prep for the pull, so it's generally back before I need it again without slotting it for recharge. I've tried slotting it for recharge, but while it does stack, the increased damage during the relatively short overlap is not as important as the stronger clumping effect and scatter containment of the Slow in my opinion. I only get to CAST Carrion Creepers every other spawn, but it's always there. When I'm on a tough spawn, I can wait till CC is available to cast so it gets the boost from SA to make it really chew up tightly packed spawns quickly. Ther synergy of these three pets + Spirit Tree together is amazing. Fortunata is like a psychic assault rifle especially when she gets in the melee and gets the End boost from SA. She burns through end like a poorly designed blaster and when I get them all in the melee ball for a good Soul Absorption hit they become nearly unkillable. It's pretty rare that I lose any of them, but if I do, it's usually Fluffy that goes down as he generally triggers first and hits the spawn with a heal and/or debuff. I suspect he's using Darkest Night as well which does a great job of holding aggro, it's hard to tell at times. Quick resummon and he's back in action though without the Fade +def and any Soul Absorption Regen to debuff the crap out of the spawn while I keep them confused and attacking their buddies while stuck in Tar covered in roots and constantly getting blasted by waves of dark forces and giant flailing vegetative tentacles. Seriously, keeping Spirit Tree up and overlapping when possible is incredibly impactful. Speaking of Regen, if I get at least 5 hits on Soul Absorption, that puts me at about +430% regen and more end than I can use, then add in the Spirit Tree's +330% Regen and my regen from sets and I've been in fights where I'm regenerating up to 70 health a second, PLUS Fluffy is popping Twilight Grasp, and Panacea unique is doing it's periodic heal in the background. What really makes Dio TOUGH is the combo of all that regen with the ~45 Ranged Def ~ 40 Smash/Lethal Resistance, 47 Negative Nrg, 26 Psionic 22-23 Nrg/Fire/Cold and 15 Toxic combined with the -30 Dmg Buff of Darkest Night + nearly the same from Fluffy and a stack of -ToHit from various sources. Chances are VERY good the mobs are hitting each other. Anyone NOT hitting their buddy, has a devil of a time hitting me, and even if they hit me they generally hit like a weak kitten, and I'm generally regenerating health at between 30 and 70 per second plus healing. Veridicane had trouble with the first mission in Glacia's TF/Signature Arc, she did it at +4 X8, but it was somewhat rough with beholder analogs etc. Dio? No real sweat. As long as I follow a normal attack pattern I walked through the mission at a nice steady pace, not much harder than a normal mission. Arachnos? Same. Getting blinded still happens a bit, but, as long as I get wine in their face before I lose sight of them I can make it through pretty well. Let the pets take the alpha strike as normal and all goes well. Carnies? Soul Absorption take most of the sting out of their end sapping death effect, just hang back a bit if end is getting low. Circle of Thorns? Don't make me laugh, I breeze through those mission. Council? Boss Warwolves are annoying, but still not a real threat unless I let a boss close to melee with me without seeing him, and even them my pets generally have my back and I recover quick. Otherwise Council is pretty easy peasy as usual. In his first outing in Incarnate content, I went in at +4 X8 with only the single incarnate level shift from the Tier 3 Alpha. It was more challenging than other content, but with good play and no TERRIBLE runs of bad luck it's totally playable. I have to be paying attention, but I can definitely play Ehpram Sha's missions (both Banished Pantheon and Knives of Vengence) at those settings, +4 X8 with bosses. With two more Incarnate level shifts to go, I'm quite sure it will become substantially easier. So yes, Dio is my most effective/powerful Controller yet. Don't have Judgement, Lore, or Destiny slotted yet and Hybrid is 51% unlocked, so he'll just get better. Next up is Clarion in Destiny so I can stop carrying a 4-5 pack of Emerge/Breakfree. So this is the current build. I would appreciate any feedback or suggestions, cost is no object as you can tell from the sets in use already. 🙂

I think this is the current build if it's any help, I've run it with a few different focuses. Haven't looked at it in a while, I should probably dust Lavan off and tweak it some more... 🙂

I love Fire/Storm. Pure elemental engine of destruction. Lavan FireStorm is one of my top tier controllers for raw damage and fun. Highly recommend the experience, and it plays a lot differently than most controllers. Chaos control. absolutely plan on all the end/recovery techniques and Health uniques plus Atlas accolade, you’ll need them as it’s a very end hungry build. Totally worth it though! 🙂

So, the promised build update: I will probably shift slots around in the final a bit, I think Onlyasandwich is right about dropping two off Fly Trap and losing the extra +Range Def set bonus. Having it there on the way up totally makes sense though, as getting to high Range Def ASAP makes a TON of difference in how a Controller build plays. I've added some empty slots in areas where they will go as things fill out for things like the 6 pack of WotC in Roots and the 5 pack of Unbreakable Constraint. Pretty sure I'll swap Dark Embrace back in for Dark Consumption as originally planned, now that I've played with SA with a 6 pack of Preemptive Optimization in it, there is just no point to another End recovery, it simply isn't needed. I used one of my bellwether test missions for Controller builds as they come of age: Carnies. Just ran a +3 X8 Carnie radio mission at lvl 44 in PI and it was a romp. I needed to use probably 3 break free insps, but that was it. Seemed to me like the Fortunata (don't have a name for her yet, Fly Trap is the obvious "Audrey 2", and Dark Servant in dark green is "Swamp Noun", still pondering for Fortunata. "Eraser Head" seems mean) was REALLY effective. Not sure if her AI is targeting Illusionists or what, but subjectively she was kicking some serious Carnie butt. I think part of what made it work so well was the massive Recovery boost of SA with Preemptive Optimization in it. Arachnos... Was still a PITA. Blinded is just so hard to deal with without lots of yellows. Veridicane ate Arachnos for a snack because she has sooo many pseudo pets out there that being blinded was just an inconvenience. Just keep throwing Pseudo pets and Ice storm out and wait till the spawn was dead. Preemptive Optimization in SA is a real find. When I say it's dirt cheap, I mean it's DIRT CHEAP. All recipes were going for peanuts and all six used exactly the same components none of which were rare. It pretty much maxes out the slotted rech (91.78 in Mids) gives you +3.75 Ranged Def and +3.75 global Rech. Might change it in the final build, but I get plenty of regen from SA + Spirit Tree as it is. Very rarely need to worry about touching TG, Fluffy does that for me. If I go Vigor as originally planned, ALL my healing will get better anyway. Anyway, I highly recommend it as slotting for SA on the way to incarnate. Just realized I'm lacking a 5th LotG mule... I could probably drop Entangle? Useful for locking down an A/V though as well as a good single target damage power with procs in it. Hmmm... Will ponder, but welcome any suggestions! 🙂 I was using Maneuvers originally, that's probably what I'd drop in. Darkest Night: I have used it with two range enh slotted before, and as mentioned above it really helps it's utility as a pulling tool once you have pets hanging around. On this build I think the -30% Dmg debuff is almost worth more than the -ToHit, just never really needed to slot it with my normal 4 pack of Dark Watcher. Don't see that changing from here as Incarnate is just around the corner. Twilight Grasp: I don't think I have ever one slotted a mainline heal like that before, might take a couple slots and add them to TG and put in a 3 pack of Touch of the Nictus.

A couple of quick notes as I hit 44 this evening. I’ll post an updated build probably tomorrow. If you use a DN pull into Tar Patch, which I recommend, it’s a huge benefit to slot two + range in DN. That puts the range out to about 100’ which often lets you trigger the pull on a mob on the far side of the spawn without Audrey and Fluffy aggroing prematurely. I tried out using /Earth for a few levels, but the melee focus of Seismic Smash and need to be on the ground to use Fissure it just didn’t work well with my play style which focuses on Hover + Evasive Maneuvers for high mobility. Respec into Soul Mastery as originally planned. Dark Obliteration 4 slotted with 1 Acc, 1 Dmg, and 2 Dmg procs. Working very well as a follow up to Soul Drain. I might slot Dark Consumption as a proc based attack. Soul Drain is also a decent AOE attack so it makes for a pretty good chain. SoC->Roots->(Tar patch if not a pull into TP already) -> fly into center of spawn and Soul Drain-> Dark Oblit->Howling twilight -> Carrion Creepers if it’s up->Soul Absorption then back up and renew SoC. If pulling into TP, place Tree close to the area of TP so when you and pets are in the scrum you have the additional regen. As expected Audrey, Fluffy, and Fortunata are a very good combo. Pop Fade before starting your attack on the spawn and they will probably all live through the full spawn. Audrey and Fluffy will generally join you in the melee scrum so they will get the benefit of Soul Absorption and Spirit Tree +regen, and fluffy hits Twilight Grasp frequently. Fortunata hangs back and picks off trouble mobs, watching your back. Still a bit of growth and tweaking to do, but overall an EXCELLENT combo. I changed Soul Absorption from the Healing set to an Endmod set (Preemptive Optimization I think?) that was dead cheap, and provided both Range Def and some + global Rech. It’s a good set for SA as it has a lot of +Rech to bring SA back up quickly, and it completely eliminates any end cost worries till I get to incarnate solutions. I have been quite impressed at how durable Audrey and Fluffy are as a pair. Esp if you do a DN to TP pull so your DN and Fluffy’s DN stack. Charging into the middle of the melee is counter intuitive to my general play style, but it’s surprisingly not too bad.

<Edited to add> Not sure why the spoiler tag is interacting weirdly with the build export from Mids. I reran the whole export and wrapped it the spoiler tags twice. I'm going to leave it for now as it's readable, just annoying. I've been typing too long as it is. 😛 </Edited to add> Up to 27th soloing last night. Build is working well. I'll include the lvl 27 version at the bottom for reference. I'm not sure on the final build as some of the suggestions Onlyasandwich mentioned are even more impactful during leveling. I anticipate changing the initial rough draft above. I did drop a slot in both Health and Stamina to add the Numina unique (Panacea was there from lvl 10), and Perf Shifter +end and a SO +EndMod. I'll probably pick up the Perf Shifter +EndMod to get the +7.5 movement, because why not. I should be clear that this lvl 27 leveling build isn't cheap if you're starting from nothing. I'm pulling catalyzed IOs from another build, so it really just costs a few unslotters and some email juggling. You would need to adapt if using just SOs, in particular Howling Twilight doesn't make a ton of sense this early in the build and 6 slotted if not using the procs. I still haven't picked up Entangle for my second single target attack, and Strangler is still under slotted as I've built this SPECIFICALLY for AOE so I can solo +2 X8 effectively. Tactics: In general, I'm alternating using Creepers and Howling Twilight on full +2 X8 spawns, though no bosses at this point. Basic attack pattern: I'm always running Hover and Shadow Fall, sometimes use Fly for stealth 1. Drop Tar pit so that the effect area of the patch is entirely around the corner, but just barely, when possible. 2. I pop Fade and possibly 1 Purple insp, though the insp is not really necessary. 3. Fly out with Darkest Night targeted on a mob near the back of the spawn, Lt by pref. As soon as I get close enough DN triggers 4. Fly back around corner ASAP and peek around corner so I can watch the spawn run forward and clump up in Tar Pit without exposing myself to fire. 5. Just before the first mobs clear Tar Patch, I slide sideways to line up a good cone and hit them with the Wine of Madness (SoC it to them!). 6. Roots. 7. Either Creepers or Howling Twilight near center of spawn. Both if I just want to watch the whole spawn dissolve. Which is, admittedly, fun. 🙂 8. Refresh Tar Patch, Twilight Grasp as needed for myself and/or Audrey 2 9. Spam Roots as available and start using Strangler on the least damaged Lt or any mobs that slipped through. 10. Fling some more Wine of Madness. 11. Run in for a hefty Soul Absorption hit before the first bodies begin to disappear. If Audrey is looking ragged I'll pop SA sooner. Note: If Creepers is still around it tends to pop up and short stop the pull so the spawn will clump up prematurely. This is sub-optimal as I have to wait for Tar Patch to recharge which reduces the damage everything does, but I just run in and pop SoC where the spawn is, it's fine. Same thing can happen with Audrey, luckily she's pretty tough and generally survives until I get things under control and can use TG and SA as needed. (A) Empty (A) Empty (A) Empty (A) Panacea - +Hit Points/Endurance (23) Numina's Convalesence - +Regeneration/+Recovery (A) Empty (A) Performance Shifter - Chance for +End (23) Endurance Modification ------------

Maybe Plant/TA and go TP pool for Fold Space? Drop them into the patch of doom and then confuse them all. 🙂

I think I hit 24 soloing last night on Plant/Dark. it’s working pretty well, as expected one of the biggest things I miss at the lower levers is the lack of -Def. That’s starting to get better as I start putting in some catalyzed sets. Have a 5 pack of Posi and a 6 pack of Malaise Illusions as well as a Kismet ToHit. Running pretty well at +2 X8. Later I expect to feel the lack of Rune of Protection more. I find myself toggling Darkest Night off after I have the spawn self destructing nicely, saved some end and helps them hit each other better. I think I want to do a TA next though, I totally agree on the synergy with Symph, that set it all about the cones, which makes playing at range ideal. Grav should work well as you can prepare the landing zone for your Wormhole so the spawn really drops into the middle of a VERY bad spot for them. That sounds like a lot of fun. 🙂 I probably should still do the Plant/TA next though.

Some great feedback, thanks! I should have specified that I’m currently thinking Vigor for the alpha, so that’s what this build is based on. What makes Plant/Dark different in my thoughts from my prior characters is having LAYERS of mitigation rather than having a single perfect area or two. Strong Ranged Def + Good -ToHit. Really quite decent Damage resistance for several common damage types + strong Regen. Both Spirit Tree and Soul Absorption together should be very effective. Alm of which is just backup to the “Wine of Madness” tm (SoC) with Cognitive and Contagious Confusion. And a bunch of -Rech if I remember correctly. I think I’m going to miss Rune of protection. I’ll probably lean on Clarity in the Destiny slot and carry a lot of Breakfrees until then. High Ranged Def should help there. If I do go Vigor for the Alpha the focus on healing will pay off (Spirit tree would generate +330ish% Regen added to Soul Absorption and Twilight Grasp on Dio and Fluffy. That’s a lot of healing. Vigor also largely solves the end use issue, especially with Soul Absorption on tap, and solves the Acc question as well. I normally run with Panacea, Numina, and Miracle in Health for just that reason. But putting them in sets lets me get the set bonuses at the same time, which are considerable. I never generally focus on healing as a goal, but here it’s one of the synergies. Soul Absorption is already amazing in a good team, add in the “Tree of Life” tm and it just gets BETTER. Any Regen based set will become a god if it lives in the melee. Might not work in real play terms, but I saw what a difference the Tree made with long term survivability (on Plant/Storm) without impacting my chain and it would leave Twilight Grasp in reserve as needed, should be dang effective. Preventative Medicine proc firing should make a great warning trigger to hit TG. Could certainly be off base, which is why I appreciate other perspectives! 🙂 All that said, I think you’re probably right about dropping Fly Trap to 4 and dropping one in Health and one in Stamina. :: chews lip :: Really all your suggestions are spot on. Some I wrestled a bit with in getting to this point and many of them I may well implement. examples: 1. I normally run with the four pack of Dark Watcher in Darkest Night for exactly that reason, took it out for something I thought was more important than the 5% recharge with it where it was already. Still not totally sold on it. 2.Have a Kismet +6 in the enhancement tray looking at me. Did not think of some of them like the Ribo in Dark Embrace. Vines is a toss up, I did almost exactly that on Plant/Storm, scrounged up the slots to put a 5 pack of the purple hold set for exactly that reason. Here I’d maybe be tempted to pick up Black Hole instead as it can be single slotted and still be a nigh perfect panic button, to put a sudden spawn of adds on… Ahem… Hold. I agree that Spirit Tree is the piece that could change things the most in terms of swapping something… And by itself, it is anemic. As part of a healing stack though? Would also be a great benefit for ranged combatants, here, have +330ish Regen to tide you over while I focus on the spawn. Fly Trap, Fluffy, and Fortunata also tend to hang back during the Aloha strike and for some time, so they would benefit. Sooooooo many options! 🙂

So after the great suggestions from my fellow Controller afficionados, I went with Plant/Dark for my new alt and Dionysus Eleutherios was born! I'll update the Chronology with more details as I move forward, but I soloed from 1 - 18 today with no real issues. The combo of Darkest Night + Tarpit + Roots + a couple purple insps works great to get rolling on the spawns in Perez. Once you pick up SoC at lvl 8, it just becomes so much faster. I broke my usual pattern and picked up Howling Twilight early and have it 5 slotted by lvl 18 with 4 dmg Procs + the starting Dmg+Rech + Proc . Nice. It's not up every spawn yet, but when it is, it hits hard, and adding a good AOE dmg power (Slotted with Procs Howling Twilight is 25' radius autohit mini-nuke) to the AOE attack chain works GREAT. Don't even have Creepers yet, and I'm running at X8 +2 on Troll missions. Working very well, and as I know both sets well, it's easy to prioritize powers. I haven't really noodled the build all the way through, but my current work in progress is:

Thank you all for such great suggestions and commentary. I really appreciate it! 🙂 Someday I'm going to have to do Illusion/Dark as well. Never really spent a lot of time with my lowbie Illusion characters. I know Illusion/Rad was always the FotM for A/V soloing. I haven't played Dominator in a long time either. Pyropsius (Fire/Psi) was brokenly OP as a permadom before they nerfed Domination and Psychic Shockwave was massively overpowerd before they nerf/fixed it's doing damage at a single target scale instead of PBAOE. Argent (Mind/Psi) was a lot of fun too. I think that was the only two Doms I took to 50 on live, but I really enjoyed the playstyle. Thanks for suggesting a Plant Dominator, I'm absolutely going to have to do that in the not too distant future. Of the other suggestions, I really like the idea of two (well, more than that, Plant/Traps looks like it could be a lot of fun too, but not sure I would enjoy the looooong activations of Trip Mine and Time Bomb) ideas suggested. Plant/Dark and Plant/TA I've played /Dark a lot, but I never got my /TA very high on live and haven't played it on Homecoming at all. I've been looking at the details of both sets in Mids, and /Storm probably IS the best match in terms of maximizing the effectiveness of Seeds' aoe confusion. You get the lion's share of the xp from defeated confused mobs as long as you do a decent chunk of the damage. Plant does enough with Creepers, Roots, and Ice Storm to clear that threshold easily. So really, you want the mobs to do as much damage to each other as possible as quickly as possible. /Dark lacks the self destruction synergy that /Storm has. Freezing Rain makes them hit each other more easily (-Def), and do more damage when they do (-Res) in a single power that's perma with 3 +Rech out of the box. -30 Def and -30 Res makes the mobs shred each other like rabid weasels. /Dark on the other hand, has a -15% ToHit/-30% Dmg in Darkest Night, and -30% Res in Tar Patch. The -ToHit means the mobs hit each other less often, and while the -Res means they do more damage the -30 Dmg means they do less to start with. So overall, probably a net negative in terms of how much damage mobs do to each other. Of course that also means better damage mitigation for you, and you get a GREAT pulling tool in the bargain. Pulling into Tar Patch gives you a nice clumping of the mobs, esp if you can do a corner pull, which Darkest Night lends itself to. Can't remember how procs interact with toggles, would be interesting if you could use procs in Darkest Night. /Dark provides a lot of survivability, an excellent pet, has 2 built in +Def powers to hold LotG's and pair well with the -ToHit from Darkest Night and Fluffy (Dark Servant), Soul Absorption to eliminate /End issues and provide great +Regen and it has Howling Twilight. A lot of people underestimate Howling Twilight the auto-hit A/V regen neutering mini-nuke that rezzes entire teams as a side hustle. It's an auto-hit 25' radius AOE that applies a -500 Regen, a -62.5 Rech, does a little damage, and incidentally provides an AOE ally rez. And it can take 5 dmg procs and a -12.5(?) Res proc. And it sounds so dramatic. It's on a 180 sec cooldown, so it procs VERY well. At about +170 global recharge, that puts HT available every 67 seconds or so. It's like an every spawn to every 2 out of 3 spawns depending. I think? Don't have a good minutes per spawn metric in my head, Veridicane is pretty fast on a spawn of +4 X8 CoT. /Dark is just tough to beat if you do much soloing and hell-on-wheels on a team, it lacks a -Def power, so I often end up with /Leviathan because Water Spout is just hard to pass up. It would a toss up between /Lev, /Ice, or /Soul on a Plant/Dark I think. /Soul would obviously have the upper hand on the /Dark theme. I like the surgical nature of /TA. Great big bag of tools to control the battle ground itself to shift things in you(r team)'s direction. TA has a lot of the same debuff abilities, but broken up more and all click powers. I definitely need to roll a /TA at some point, I had a Mind/TA on live that was a CONTROL monster. I think I talked myself into a Plant/Dark... When I started typing this post I was going to create both and do a side by side comparison between the two as a chronology. Now I think I'm going to do a Dionysius themed Plant/Dark, and I'll find another Alt to run with /TA. Maybe Fire/TA so I can stack Smoke and Flash Arrow? Hmmm...

Veridicane (Plant/Storm) is the one of the last builds I took to 50 on live and I've deeply enjoyed building her all over again with a LOT more optimization here. Still having a blast playing and tweaking the build. Part of what really makes it shine is, of course, Seeds. As one of the original a Mind/Kin players, I greatly enjoy the xp and damage buff of confuse, and pairing it and Creepers with /Storm is just... :: Chef's kiss :: Oh fellow Controller addicts: What else would you suggest? /Dark would be super survivable. /Kin is tempting, but haven't tried FS with Creepers, so not sure if it would benefit enough from it. Thoughts?

Soul Absorb also pairs obscenely well with Soul Drain from Soul Mastery. Soul Brothers FTW. I haven't tried Ill/Dark either, but a ton of time on Dark/Dark and Fire/Dark (Highly recommended, my second most powerful Incarnate Controller ). Fluffy (Dark Servant) works excellently with a 6 pack of Cloud Senses. The proc can trigger on almost every power Fluffy has and it does good damage both aoe and single target. The +Ranged Def is excellent which pairs very well with the Hover + Evasive maneuvers combo (and I agree, it's excellent! Gives you two LotG in the flight pool too.) Agree with pretty much everything above. Thanks for the thought! I've been thinking about an Ill/ alt as a possible next project, hadn't thought about pairing it with /Dark probably because I've done a lot of /Dark recently, so I've been thinking about other secondaries. Could be one hell of a tough build when you pair the tank like nature of /Dark with PA as an unkillable tank solution. 🙂 🙂

I did some more A/V testing using Black Scorpion as the test subject in "Max's" "Recover Slinger from Arachnos" mission in the DA incarnate Arc. It's obvious that I hadn't done much A/V soloing before, the first few attempts at taking down a +4 Black Scorpion A/V... Did not go well. Properly handled this build CAN solo a +4 Black Scorpion without a Signature Summon temp pet. Need the Lore Pet though, I used a Tier 3 Longbow Cataphract and Warden. I dropped back and did the same mission at +2 X1 so I could jog through the long map (and didn't have to deal with 2 bosses in addition to the A/V) to get to Black Scorpion. After doing some better planning and starting the fight as outlined below, +2 was not a real problem. Same thing at +3 though it took a bit longer. On the +4 run I let the A/V slip free of the immob briefly at the very end and he immediately jumped to a beam up in the ceiling with a sliver of health left. That cost me the expiry of the Cataphract, and I almost didn't get the job done. Pulled it out by the skin of my teeth. Definitely needed the Longbow Cataphract Lore Pet for the -Regen and extra tanking/damage at +4. Might be easier with Interface switched from Cognitive to Degenerative, didn't try that yet. #1 tactical mistake I made was not coming in above the A/V and quickly stacking the Roots for Immob. Plant/Storm is all about building a patch of doom and keeping the target on top of the Freezing Rain, Creepers and stacked Lightning Storms and Tornados all while you and your beat down crew are standing in the +Regen area of 1-2 Spirit trees. Key lessons learned: Having Roots 6 slotted with WotC is extremely useful, it stacks and lasts well enough to keep an A/V nailed to the ground and as long as you use it periodically while only costing about 6 End (running 4th tier Vigor Alpha so Roots is +112.7 Endred ). Stay in the air and out of melee range. Start with Spirit Ward on Cataphract so it survives the alpha while you get everything set up and your Spirit Tree(s) going. Make sure you have at least a Good Luck running at all times in the beginning (can slack off later when all your pseudo pets are out) and bring some Take a Breather (blue candy) with so you can pop off all powers rapidly and mostly continually. The most important things you are doing is keep the A/V from moving and keeping Freezing Rain under his feet while popping Tornado and Lightning Storm as often as they are up. Spam Strangler and Arcane bolt (for the periodic FF +Rech) as Endurance allows let up on Arcane Bolt if end is getting dicey, then slow down with Strangler if needed. Use blue insp fairly freely though, I would have done better if I had kept up a faster pace and burned through blues more. Creepers as slotted above helps, but not nearly as useful against a single hard target as it is against large spawns. Keep an eye on Cataphract and Warden and use O2 boost as needed, do not let them die. Flytrap is easily resummoned. Not sure where Black Scorpion falls in the difficulty level of A/V soloing experiences, and I did NOT use Poisoned Daggar from the P2W vendor, which might have helped. All in all though, I continue to be impressed with what Veridicane can handle. Running through the entire Arachnos map on +4 X8 the first time I ran through the mission last night really drove home how effective a build it is. Arachnos is generally a PITA on my controllers, and I switched out Clarion for Ageless to handle the "Blinded" issue, but honesty it wasn't needed. Veridicane can just keep stacking pseudopet powers and Spirit Tree keeps me on my feet while I use Tornado to target Freezing Rain and Ice Storm. Hurricane makes it very hard for them to really do much to me and Lightning Storm, Tornado, Flytrap (with Spirt Ward) and Creepers have my back. Outside of a mission with an A/V at the end, I don't think I've hit anything I can't handle pretty readily at +4 X8, and as mentioned above, the only reason I dropped from +4 X8 to +4 X1 was convenience and to avoid the distraction of having two +4 bosses running around while I was trying to concentrate on the A/V. A word about Spirit Tree and Flytrap: As slotted with a 6 pack of Preventative Medicine, I have about a 27 second period where I only have one Spirit Tree out, so I'm only regenerating 28.02 HP/Sec. When I have two out I'm regenerating at 44.12 HP/Sec. That makes a huge difference in keeping pets alive during a tough fight like a +4 A/V. On merely challenging fights with just Flytrap out, having Spirit Ward on Flytrap (single slotted with + Heal IO and with Vigor providing another +33% Heal) and a Spirit Tree (+121.1 Heal enhancement for a total of 331.71% Regen) makes Flytrap a surprisingly tough little pocket tank. Audrey II rarely dies, and almost never while Spirit Ward is still running. I've found that tossing an O2 boost and retoggling Spirit Ward on is generally all I need to do rescue my little bitey buddy from near dead. Flytrap is really a pretty decent pet and synergizes well with the rest of the Plant/Storm toolkit. 🙂

That makes complete sense, thank you. 🙂 I suppose the main thing is I hadn't really thought about CC being a pseudo pet that summons more entities, so I was thinking about it like Tornado and Lightning Storm. I should run some tests with Force Feedback +Rech in CC to see how often that procs. It's hard to pay attention to the short lived FF +Rech buff icon, and last time I checked Hero Stats wasn't working to parse the logs at all. I suppose I'll put pet damage/combat chat in a tab and scroll through that to see how it does. I tried this out last night with the slotting above. It's highly effective against X8 size spawns, particularly minions and Lts. Bosses still take a while to whittle down if they get spread out instead of clumped together. CC, Lighting Storm, and Tornado all do massively more damage if targets are tightly grouped. I see the procs going off with decent frequency in the Pet combat chat stream. I have whole new things to look at. 🙂

Dang. That's good to hear. 🙂 I did not expect that? I thought pseudo pet powers pretty much only procced when cast? No Force Feedback + Rech? Granted it doesn't fire as often as Tornado and Arcane Bolt, so that makes some sense. I moved Ice Storm from Posi 5 pack to Artillery 6 pack for the hefty +Ranged Def (over +4) with better overall +rech for Ice Storm itself and still get the +9 Acc. I'm planning on offsetting the +Rech loss of the 5 pack of Posi by adding a slot to Vines and 5 slotting Unbreakable Constrain purple for the + Rech + Acc. Could probably finance most of the Unbreakable Constraint by selling the Apoc set... On the Chronology side, I tried something I never really bothered with before on this build: soloing A/Vs! I did Infernal at +0 X8 and I used Lore pet (Longbow Cataphract). Went down pretty fast and easy. Tonight I did Nightstar on +1 X8 with NO lore pet or poisoned dagger -regen. I did use Backup Radio PPD. Took longer, but with 1-2 Spirit trees out I was pretty safe and the A/V went down. Slowly, but went down in a couple minutes. I'm considering switching Interface from Cognitive to Degenerative to see how much difference it makes. No idea how that stacks up. I know sets like /Rad or /Dark with hefty -regen can manage it if careful I was impressed that Veridicane was able to pump out enough raw damage to whittle down a +1 A/V with no -Regen. Also considering trying Musculature in Alpha instead of Vigor, though vigor works soooo well with this build I'm unsure if it will be worth it. Overall I HIGHLY recommend Plant/Storm all the way through, starts strong and just keeps getting better and better all through the progression. At this point I'm going for best possible build, just not sure what that looks like yet. Veridicane is already stronger than my previous best Fire/Dark (LotR) or my Fire/Storm (Lavan), Dark/Dark (Shadow Fallen), or Dark/Symphony (Killashandra). I'm not going to mention my couple of tanks, they are brokenly OP ever since they got the AOE buffs. 😛

The big benefit in Symph is the focus on cones, slot them for mostly damage but don't ignore control as Wimbochismo pointed out. Play around with the pet as you have some control of what the pet uses power wise, which can be handy. I really wish you could slot Will of the Controller in the pet! 🙂

Veridicane mostly Incarnate update: Still tweaking the build a bit, but so far I'm pretty good with /Ice Mastery. Hibernate is really powerful/effective for a Plant/Storm, Ice Storm is great AOE damage as always and for groups with a substantial Smashing/Lethal aspect Frozen Armor is excellent. I swapped out my prior slotting for Lightning storm for a 6 pack of Thunderstrike for the +3.75 Ranged def and filled in a 5 pack of Overwhelming Force for Tornado (which has the better +Dmg/KB -> KD enh) + the ForceFeedback +Rech. so current build looks like this: Big difference in effectiveness. I'm going to put a 5 pack of Ragnarök (everything except the KB) in Carrion Creepers to boost things a bit, but probably more for the better enh values than the increase in set bonuses from Posi Blast -> Ragnarok which is incremental. The additional +Rech will be nice in Creepers though. Endurance usage is looking pretty good, I have Hibernate for End recovery at need, and can swap out Clarion for Ageless in Destiny slot if really needed. Flytrap with Spirt Ward is dang durable with just the default Spirit Ward slot with an IO +Heal and the +Heal from tier 4 Vigor in the Alpha slot. Dropping Spirit Tree (6 pack of Preventive Medicine) adds substantial survivability to both Audry II (Flytrap) and myself, though it's not needed often. My bellwether check was doing my first Incarnate content (Ephram Sha) Talons of Vengeance mission at +4 X8. No problem. Ran though the mission at a good speed and even though I forgot there would likely be an ambush I got through with no sweat. Hurricane 4 slotted with Dark Watcher for -ToHit makes a huge difference with the flying Boss assassin mobs. With all my pseudo pets out I can turtle up in Hibernate to deal with any unexpected situations. I don't think I used ANY incarnate click powers in the mission. Previously my most effective Controller for incarnate content was my Fire/Dark Lord of the Ravens (LotR) who does pretty well at that mission with those settings, but I have to be somewhat careful and remember the quirks of the build. My Fire/Storm (Lavan) struggles a bit in the same situation and has to lean on Ageless a bit for debuff resistance. Veridicane just basically blew through the mission first try. Nice. 🙂 Highly recommended build!

Just unlocked the Alpha slot last night, and I did get a perfect opportunity to use Spores. As I had originally expected, It worked very well when presented with two spawns close together. The range on it and the fact that it triggers aggro unlike the much better sleep in Mind/ Mass Hyp makes it less useful. It really came down to internal debate on Spores vs Snow Storm. Snow Storm: Very useful as a pulling tool, which can be VERY effective with a Plant/Storm. The hefty slow effect makes the spawn clump up a bit, and they take a bit to get to you so you can have ALL your pseudo pets up and waiting for when they get there. I think the -Rech might also mesh very well with the pseudo /Regen I've been pondering on this build. Slowing all the mobs down gives you more time to react and position yourself well, which can be meaningful if you use Hurricane effectively. Spore Burst: Situational. If there are two mobs side by side or around a corner from each other, sleeping one after confusing the other can be useful. They will wake up, but it generally holds most of them under control well enough that your AOE Maelstrom of Chaos can absorb them as they wake. It was quite useful in the right situation. Tentative Debate Answer: I think Vines is better than both. With a 4 pack of BasGaze I get excellent +Rech and Vines will be up more often than not. It's a lot better than Spores as mitigation, and I don't need two spawn capability THAT often. Vines is also better as a reaction to a sudden set of unexpected Adds and with decent Global +Rech should be up fairly consistently. Hurricane. Just want to spend a minute highlighting Hurricane. If you are a /Storm player, and you're not using Hurricane on your controllers, it might be worth a focused effort to master the positional control it gives you. If you can stack all the mobs into a tight corner, when you unload all your AOE and Pseudo pets on them the speed of the damage goes up substantially. This is largely due to the Area effect attacks from Tornado and Lightning Storm (small 5' and 5 target cap IIRC) and all the Creepers packed into a small area where they do a lot more total DPS. The difference in spawn clearing speed is VERY large. I expect it's currently exaggerated by the fact that I have zero IO sets slotted, just key individual uniques, and as a result my (single +Acc lvl 35 generally) accuracy running at +3X8 is dodgy. Once the fight is rolling it's not an issue with the -Def from Tornado and Ice Slick. So as a result, my initial SoC and Roots opening misses more than it should, and there are often a good handful of runners, esp Council Wolves. Using Herdicane techniques even a little bit can help a lot. I generally set my Spirit Tree, edge in front of it, and then push forward into the spawn the first few mobs to pack the spawn before hitting them with SoC and then Roots. Spawns have a tendency to clump up a bit when they attack each other, and Ice Slick and Tornado make it easier for them to hit each other while doing more damage. War Wolves are a PAIN. Vines will work better on them than Roots if there are an abnormal number of wolves running around. That's the other reason tight clumping is amazingly more effective than normal on a Plant/Storm, it puts more confused mobs in melee range of each other. VERY satisfying. Really waffling on /Ice vs. /Primal too. Even without any sets slotted or any /Incarnate capability this build is doing pretty well at Council missions running into +4 mobs in +3 missions. What I have slotted now is a mix of lvl 30 or 35 IOs and lvl 50 SOs. My slotting choices have been more driven by my desire to play around with specific powers on the way up. Picking up Vigor Radial Paragon on the Alpha slot will help +Heal, +End, +Acc, +Confuse, and +Sleep. My current Acc and Endred requirements should ease up substantially as I add IO sets in and the Vigor Alpha slot addresses those issues. +Heal will be quite useful. I guess I feel this basic config is good enough to optimize a bit and see how it plays before trying the /Primal option. I will still want to try PB on this combo. I have a suspicion through that Spirit Tree may be bugged as the "power in effect on you" icon for Spirit Tree shows +150 Regen and not the almost 300 that the tree is slotted to. I think I'll try using Clarion as a PB stand in first. Anyway, this is an intermediate build I'm currently going to try out. Won't have all of the handful of the purple sets here, and if I decide to take it further I'll go back and swap out some Sets for more expensive options. I only need 2 Overwhelming Force enh, and I'll borrow WotC and Coercive Persuasion sets from another character to get this build going.

Leveled up a lot doing my normal run through the Trilogy mission arc farming each mission where you have one of the boss level mission pets. By level 47 I'm soloing at +3 X8 Main reason I don't go to +4 is I only have a single Acc slotted for each power that needs it. Hitting is getting iffy at +3. Spirt Tree makes a solid difference. On the leveling build I went with Ice Mastery, and that's really not a bad fit. Ice Storm is excellent targeted AOE damage which meshes very well with the basic AOE attack chain. No IO Sets slotted, but I have 4 LotG global +Rech, and the Panacea, Miracle, and Numina's unique +Rec enh slotted in Health, Stamina 4 slotted with 3 Endmod and the Perf Shifter + End. Three pack of Overwhelming Force slotted in Tornado with the KB to KD enh included. I'm heavily slotted for Endred. Spirt tree is 6 slotted with 3 Heal, and 3 +Rech. I tried out Spore burst. Not terribly helpful, and I like sleeps generally because I solo a lot. Doing largely Council missions to maximize the utility of Frozen Armor. What I've currently been doing is: Have Hurricane, Steamy Mist, Frozen Armor, Hover, Evasive Maneuvers, and Combat Jumping and Spirit Ward on Fly Trap all running as toggles. Drop Spirit Tree close enough to the spawn that when I move forward to hit the spawn with seeds I'm still in the Tree's effect radius. Edge forward to potentially compress the spawn a bit with hurricane if needed, pop Seeds of Confusion followed by Roots. Then Freezing Rain, Ice Storm, Carrion Creepers if it's up, Lightning Storm and Tornado. Make sure Audrey Two (Fly Trap) is in good shape, hit a coupld of O2 boost if not, then Hibernate and let all my AOE do some work. If the geometry favors clumping up the spawn tighter with Hurricane DO IT. It increases the AOE effects of Lightning Storm and Tornado a lot. Then it's clean up with Strangler and Arcane Bolt using other power as appropriate. This build will get a LOT better with a lot of global +Rech and probably Vigor for the Alpha slot. Will probably get a chance to try switching to Primal and playing with Power Boost later this weekend. Will post some build(s) if I can...

Thoughts evolving towards the idea of using Power Boost and Clarity (incarnate) in rotation to make Veridicane a pocket /regen. Powerboosted Spirit tree fully slotted should be around +485(ish) on Regen. Up to +50% Regen from LotG 2 packs. +80% from slotted Health (+120% with PB/Clarity) +Regen from enh and sets I'm not sure on totals yet, but it's should be enough to be useful. Focus just on /Range for +Def set bonuses and use Hurricane to block melee. Very high Smashing/Lethal +Res from Rune of Protection + Temp Invulnerability. Probably at cap with PB? I think this is the first time I've looked at a controller build and thought: Hmmm Tanky. Fire/Dark tanks well, but it's a you can't hit me kind of tank rather than an I don't care if you do kind of tank. Vigor for Alpha. Clarity for Destiny Control Core for Hybrid Cognitive Core Flawless Interface

Veridicane was one of the last builds I took to 50 on Live, I recall it being a lot of fun though. I've had a lvl 20 version sitting on Torchbearer for a long time and just got back to playing with it the last couple of weeks. Just dinged 32 v (all soloing) last night. Yup, a lot of fun. Other than the end hog nature of EVERY /Storm controller it's quite a good combination with fun synergy. Plant's multiple sources of immob/KB control powers mesh well with Storm's Hurricane and Ice slick for providing tightly bunched groups that really leverage the AOE effect from Tornado, Lightning Storm, and Carrion Creeper (aka Vegetative Tentacles) Using Spirt Ward and the occasional O2 boost on Audrey II (flytrap aka Bitey) is very effective, and Seeds of Confusion (aka Dance my Puppets, Dance!) increases the speed with which full spawns are defeated very effectively. Running Hurricane makes you nearly immune to Melee attacks and provides excellent positioning control when paired with Hover + Steamy Mist + Evasive Maneuvers. I tried going deep into the Sorcery Pool to use Enflame, but while it worked to a degree, it didn't really play too well, and wasn't worth having another end heavy toggle that I had to manage the targeting for. Audrey isn't the best target as they tend to hang back and shoot from range for quite a bit. Mobs tend to keep dying for some reason. 😛 Hover-Fly-Evasive is great for mobility for the herdicaning as mentioned and targetting Seeds cones from on high can be very useful. Seeds definitely benefits from some +Range. Spirit Tree was underwhelming initially, but I think will come into it's own later. Waffling between Ice Mastery and Leviathan. Hibernate from either, too useful for a /Storm controller. Ice would get me: +Def Frozen Armor for a 5th +LotG set. Thinking of doing two packs of LotG (Global +Rech and +Def to get the +10% Regen and better raw Def) for each. Ice Storm massive AOE dmg to speed up spawn elimination Leviathan would get me: Water Spout as another FF + Rech and Achilles -Res vector, love Water Spout. Coralax, which is usually somewhat fragile, but I think will live fairly well with this build and help with stacking damage Loosely also considering Soul Mastery as Dark Consumption would be handy for End management till I hit incarnate and can be slotted as a mini-nuke with dmg procs, +Dmg from Soul Drain would be useful , but it doesn't blend well with the cone and Targetted AOE nature of the rest of the build. Fortunata is a good ranged pet, so always helpful. Intuition Radial Paragon is a likely Alpha pick Though Cardiac and for this build Vigor are also strong contenders. I have to really think about this one. I'll post a current build later, editor is doing weird things as I type this which is making it awkward to edit.

I resemble that remark. I used to make it a point to NOT take the fitness pool on my characters simply because almost EVERYONE did. 🙂