dukedukes

High HP targets (AV's, GM's) have 60-87% regen res so -50 is pretty bad. Poison isn't known for its -regen, traps has -1000 regen and a bunch of the debuffers have -500. It matters most on GM's and that's a pretty specific activity so it doesn't hurt the set much IMO.

Mag 4 stun is peak entertainment, great choice. I run that on a warshade with gravitic emanation and inky aspect, I wish they were max 16 target powers but it's still pretty fun regardless.

The cards are on the table at this point, not much more to say. It's all good 🫂

It's not just poison... According to your logic nearly every -res debuff available in the game is not worth taking. Goofy thinking at best, the only valid criticism of VG is it notifies mobs. Enjoy your blaster.

I can do the math on how much better my Envenom is, is 60% not enough for you? How much better does VG need to be to break through the threshold for you.

With Darks 3 sec cast times I could understand not wanting to use it, though I'm not sure your attacks would be any more efficient. VG is a toggle so there's no effort involved. I just combat TP or spit jump (it's advanced poison stuff... don't ask) into fights and VG does its job without me accounting for it. I guess not... Well, it's good you picked up poison trap to help out teams like this, or are we team blaster now? The goalposts keep moving around... hard to keep track. I do still remember my Envenom is ~60% better than yours, so that's cool.

There's people who choose their epic based on a -18% res ST power, or pick up a -7.5-10% ST res pool power. I will gladly take a 18.75-25% 15 ft aoe that doesn't require me to do anything but exist for it to apply, you just have to pay the aggro tax (a big "just" really). All the other debuffs are useful too. If you ever want Envenom to do 65-85% -res instead of 40-60% -res (a 41.6% to 62.5% increase) look no further than VG.

VG helps my characters initiate pulls, it's equivalent to 12% defense (for troller) against +3 before potential to hit resists, you get some -damage sprinkled in to help. Since I always initiate pulls when I play poison the alpha always includes the VG debuff in its damage. Saying the -res doesn't matter ignores damage is a sum of its parts (-res is a multiplier... pretty good), and instant -res on an alpha is a big thing other debuffers will have a hard time accomplishing, VG has the fastest application at <.5 sec. You think because VG may not make the difference between wiping and clearing a pack or the mobs would die a few seconds later it's useless? You could describe any power with that assessment. If you successfully utilize VG you're using the poison set better than those who don't utilize it, unless you die (rarely happens for me these days). It would be very odd to argue against that. If you're fine with not being optimal it's no biggie to have your preferences. You can have fun being sub-optimal too. If I play with a poison character who doesn't use VG I'll be question marking internally though. Same for tankers who are oblivious to aggro, gravs who use sing as a ranged damage dealer, or other sub-optimal play styles. I don't mind playing with these folks but I do wonder about the justifications people have, if any (I generally assume ignorance), so this thread has been informative. I do understand having an aggro aura feels risky, for those people I'd recommend debuffers that don't put you in harms way. Play however you want of course.

The sound VG makes afflicting everything it touches makes it a worthy pickup for me. I enjoy challenge so posturing myself to survive the resulting attention from mobs is what I like to call fun.

Here's one from the HC discord, courtesy of @Auroxis Controller (Illusion Control - Force Field).mbd Illusion wants a lot of recharge. The changes to FF make Repulsion Bolt worth getting for the -res, Force Bomb gets -res too and is a pretty good aoe attack. Damping Bubble has team DDR you could opt in to but you'll be fine skipping it.

GC is a great opener to eat an alpha, I've seen it used well. The -tohit is quite nice though it's only a 10ft radius. Personally any troller worth their salt should be able to initiate pulls without tanks on the team and GC helps with that goal explicitly. Grav is pretty cool, it's the only troller primary I play consistently. I eat alphas with a sing TP plus some good ranged defense and other things depending on the secondary. It's less mez based but is pretty fun for the mob grouping it can do. There's a bug that affects troller pets (flying ones at least) where they get stuck trying to enter doors, like elevators. It doesn't happen all the time but it's somewhat frequent. Using TP target seems to be a workaround to bypass the bug, if you TP the pet at the door before entering it seems to get in the door every time.

Control Core is very good with those powers because of the flat proc rate, typically those powers suffer from bad proc rates. Fire Cages would get a big damage increase as the proc hits harder than the power. The toggle will have a good chance of proc'ing every 10 sec.

I'm not familiar with a general consensus on this topic but here's my 2 cents. Control Radial can dish out some serious additional mez, it's a good choice if you actually need the mez but you generally won't. Just keep it in mind if you frequently find yourself in scenarios where you wanted more mez. Control Core procs a good amount but it's not much damage. The +1 mag is less useful than it sounds, the additional mag does not last the same duration as the mez that triggered it. You also need to successfully mez the target before the procs and +1 mag can kick in. Assault Radial. The damage the double hit does isn't very intuitive but I would ballpark it dealing twice as much as Control Core, plus you get a little 10% damage boost. It's more than you would expect with trollers low damage attacks, for example my unenhanced ST hold does 33.65 damage but the double hit does 70.24 damage on its own, from my understanding part of the reason for this is the double hit ignores AT damage scaling (edit: don't take this as gospel, I don't know for sure, in some cases it doesn't seem to line up), and troller damage scaling is painfully low at .55. The choice may vary between sets, I'm only familiar with some. This is the default choice for a troller as far as I can tell.

HC is the enemy they've invented in their own mind. The real "enemy" for them is the general public at large, they're just too slow to adapt and understand their product is not as good as they think it is. As a member of the HC enemy faction I would have purchased SoH if the price was not so ridiculous. I would be willing to take the hit to explore what they've managed to accomplish in terms of game mechanics, but at this point it's looking to be not worth my time or money.

It's cool to see niche powers get some use, good find. Grav Distortion Field is nice these days if you can make use of the long duration. Repulsion Field is really the key to elevate mob herding potential, it's just very difficult to use well so take your time with it. The kb->kd isn't needed in Repulsion Field anyway as the kb only occurs in a small radius around you, and you may want the mob to move in the direction of the kb assuming you're attempting to herd the mobs together. Hurricane is a bit different because the kb can always occur, which is a big downside. On one of my gravs I have partial stealth that helps me get closer without being noticed by the mobs to then TP Sing on the pack, I do this in a team context as a pull initiator. For my Grav/FF when I'm initiating pulls I just tank some damage while I TP Sing on them as the troller is built to be pretty beefy but you would need your set bonuses. In a leveling context some partial stealth would help with gaining too much attention. When you're teaming I find it really important for gravs to get sing into the pack ASAP because once teammates start applying knockdown attacks sings pull gets disabled, so figuring out how to survive a pull initiation is important. I prefer to play aggressive with gravs and take a leading role to avoid teammates effectively disabling sings pull/trawl effect to get the most effective mob grouping possible. This is definitely worth pointing out, thanks. I would reserve the Overwhelming Force kb->kd conversion enhancement for any kb damage attacks you may have.

I don't think poison is enjoyed by everyone. Personally I like it for easy -res application. Barely any time is spent using poisons kit for big payoff. You get to spend more time on your other powers. You do have to solve survivability to an extent, I've had success on a troller taking alphas with heavy defense investment and success on a corruptor with almost pure damage investment, for the rare time I get in over my head I've got a self rez.

Yeah strategy changes depending on the mobs. Line of sight or a bit of movement is needed to pull some mob types in, assuming that's possible. I use provoke on some of my (tanky) trollers and have a good amount of success even without the -range component, but it's more situational. Regardless it's an effective strategy that is underutilized by most people, I always love to get on a team with a tank that uses it well.

A good taunt user, in situations where there's no risk, does not care about threat. They care about forcing distant enemies closer with the -range component. Sure it's not mandatory but attacking is optional too. Taunting a distant mob effectively kills it by getting them into the aoe range of your team.

I think it's a good pick up for stalkers since they don't get whirling hands. 120 degree arc and 10ft range is comfortable to use (for a cone) and procs very well with a 16s recharge (scrapper recharge is 9s, not as great for procs). It's a 71% chance for 3.5PPM procs, compared to crowd control which procs at 54%. No kb though so you lose the ffb opportunity. War mace isn't an option for stalkers but just for the sake of comparison. Some trouble with power crash is needing to spend energy for the 10 target cap, but this isn't too bad for stalkers as you should be trying to crit total focus. Overall power crash on a stalker hits harder than crowd control on a scrapper when both are proc'd up. Energy melee is very good on stalker too. If OP likes the stealth crit nin offers then stalker is a very strong option. I agree, especially for energy melee. It's really good at specializing as a boss killer. You'd probably want to fit in some aoe from your secondary and epic for when aoe is needed but it's situational. If you're doing typical pack to pack gameplay just hitting bosses should be the most effective strategy since everyone else is probably aoe'ing.

I've seen this happen several times. I know it's not a general solution but with singularity every time i change floors i tp target my pet next to the door i'm about to go in and never experience the pet getting stuck. You'd have to experiment to see if waiting for your pet to reach the door helps.

Ah, okay. You'd need to rely on punchvoke and have your aoe attacks pull their attention. You'd still have the AI issues I mentioned: flyers, running away eventually, some immediate movement depending on obstacles around you like higher surfaces than what the mobs are standing on. If you're fine with dipping in and out of melee range to reapply your taunt aura you could use a combat tp macro to make the process simpler like: /macro down "powexec_location down:20 Combat Teleport" /macro up "powexec_location up:20 Combat Teleport" You could machine gun taunt between Provoke and Taunt to keep the enemies attention but you'll be changing targets a lot to be optimal which might be too annoying. If you only use ranged attacks you may have some spare cycles to do this while you wait for cooldowns. Like I mentioned I have done hover tanking where you hover juuust above the mobs heads and the AI issues doing this are not too bad, plus you can still be in range for all your melee attacks. Flyers will still go airborne, some melee teammates may not like that, but they're not that high from the ground if you're not. This position is actually decent for tanking because your character collision is above the enemies, so enemies are able to go directly beneath you, letting the mobs pack together just a little better. Cones are surprisingly decent in this position too. If you're close like this a taunt aura would still be doing its job as well. Maybe you can find a sweet spot where you're off the ground, out of melee range, but your taunt aura still hits a few enemies. You could use combat tp to move exactly to this height from the ground if the sweet spot is really tight.

Taunting and flying away is generally a bad idea. If the mobs decide to run at you they are going to run away from your teammates, making it more difficult for your team to fight them. They will jump on top of light posts and climb up buildings if it's an option. Flying mobs will obviously fly after you. When I taunt mobs they always aggro to me and no one else (except other tank AT's), but I don't put myself in an out of reach location. From a basic test the mobs appear to try for a while (not the full taunt duration) to reach the taunter then seem to give up and run away, maybe they'll attack someone else in some cases but I see them eventually run away. It seems like you should place yourself within range of being attacked, otherwise they will eventually give up, but there is a time window where they will try to chase you. The strong purpose of Taunt is for the -range it applies to the enemies, it makes ranged mobs run closer to you which is very effective for grouping mobs. Most tankers don't seem to prioritize this but it's actually the best thing a tanker can do. Good use of taunt is what separates the men from the boys so to speak, holding aggro is only a small benefit compared to the -range. If you try to fly up in the sky as a tank and cause mobs to run around everywhere your team will probably think you're trolling. I've hover tanked before but I always stayed close to the ground to stop mobs from doing stupid things.

Catherine Wheel inherited this, I'm guessing it was a copy paste from Singularity.

Sudden Acceleration does, Overwhelming Force doesn't. I've heard someone say theirs stopped working, it was something to do with the level of the enhancement. If you attune it you're good to go. It's a big difference. With Sudden Acceleration they get knocked up instead.

The other poor gameplay decisions people can make greatly outnumber even the amount of times someone has a knockback power on the team, and often these decisions are just as impactful as a pbaoe kb. I've come to appreciate the chaos some teams can be, deleting mob packs in a couple seconds is really not that interesting of gameplay. I'd prefer at least one troublemaker in a team to mix things up.