Wimbochismo

So this is kind of a confluence of playstyle choice, what powers you have available, and how you end up building out your character. It is 100% possible to be just fine on the ground as a "ranged" character. Others have mentioned playstyle - some just love to use Hover and others need to be on the ground, and right in the melee. But then what do you do if you're in melee but have no defense, little resists, no cc powers, and you get cc'd and 2-shot. It's probably easiest to build out a Defender for 45 ranged def and just take Hover. Really you don't even need 45 of a defense, if you do something like take Rune of Protection for status protection and cycle it with Melee Core at the high end. There's even more options. Getting 45 s/l defense through an epic shield is a good start. Bumping up s/l resists with Tough and/or a different epic shield. As an Emp Defender you've got heals n stuff. Radiation has some cc. Even if you just build out a character with 45 ranged def but take Combat Jumping instead, it's not hard to play keep away with enemies. Get a feel for when they begin to use a melee attack. If they run up on you, Radiation has Electron Haze you can slot as kb-kd and Atomic Blast pbaoe mag 3 Hold. Probably worst case scenario is if you're working with ranged def without Hover and get swarmed with no safe place to walk. You can always keep one of those Jetpacks on your bar.

I'll do a quick breakdown and hope that @Uun isn't hiding around the corner 🤣 Take the 2 res slots out of Ice Shield. It's kinda nice but arguably not all that useful to boost f/c res when you want the def. Take a slot out of Experimental Injection and switch to a Prev Medicine absorb proc in the slot. Prev Med absorb proc saves lives (yours.) Ideally you want Hasten 2 slotted with recharge as your last pick. It'll get your powers up faster and synergize with Adrenal Booster. You don't really need Focused Accuracy. As a Defender your team buffs are more beefy so I'd switch it for Tactic's. You could run it with 1 or 2 end reductions and be fine. Move those slots elsewhere to powers like Storm Cell. 5 piece Sting of the Manticore is usually my standard for snipes. I haven't noticed huge issues with Cat5 knocking enemies about. Could probably remove the kb-kd slot. You could take 2 slots out of Scorpion Shield and still have the same functionality. Use the slots gained from the advice above to fill out Storm Cell, Jet Stream, and Hailstones. Maybe an extra slot or 2 for Maneuvers. Edit: Forgot about Sleet. You could/should drop Tactic's entirely if you want to keep with your current build. I was sitting with it so I made the changes I suggested and cleaned the build up a bit. clillingdoom.-Defender (Cold Domination - Storm Blast).mbd

To add to what @twozerofoxtrot said. In Thermal, from a building perspective, you're also losing precious slots that aren't giving you much benefit. More than likely you'll want to dedicate slots to the res shields because res is typically pretty valuable. Probably 2-4 slots each. That means you're getting minimal set bonus benefit's while "losing" 4-8 slots. I wouldn't even toss the Steadfast Protection unique in one because the +res enhancement portion is better in your own Tough or an epic res shield. World of Pain is also cool to toss a Gaussian's if you lack an Aim like Dark Blast. I'm also partial to Pain cause I have a Pain/Sonic. It's my catgirl yowling in the night.

You've got all your uniques slotted and made some very clear design choices. It looks like you're focusing on getting perma Hasten and high ranged defense. Couple things that stand out: Switch all those SO's to IO's and then +5 them by pressing + on numpad. When you do this you will find that you're 9s away from perma Hasten without Agility Core. Snow Storm can arguably be skipped. The -spd -rech isn't very valuable at an end game perspective. Sleep Grenade could be more worthwhile. Your end management is low without Heat Loss and it could use some slots to reduce its recharge. Remove Pacing of the Turtle set in Snow Storm for Preemptive Optimization set in Heat Loss. Higher ranged defense + recharge. Arctic Fog has good resistances, if possible I like to split its slotting with 3 LotG and 3 of a res set like Reactive Armor. Cloaking Device is overslotted for defense unless you reeeaally need that 8.75 recharge bonus. Tri Cannon slotting isn't doing anything for your build goals. Switch it to Expedient Reinforcement set. From what I remember of Power Boost, it does not affect or boost Cold's shields! I remember hearing it is because they contain a +res component. But it should be affecting some of your offensive debuffs etc.

Blind is a mag 3 Hold which sets up Containment. It also happens to do a 2ft radius Sleep. If you mean easy access to aoe Containment, then in some of the secondary's mentioned there's powers like Liquefy and Choking Cloud.

This is an additional PSA to never skip Spectral Wounds as part of a single target attack chain. Partially discounting if you have the build flexibility to proc heavily. Slotted with a full dmg set, it's one of the highest dpa powers available to Controller's. If you include the healback in every case, it is 50.16-19.57=30.59 dmg. This is also the Containment dmg that is being added. Cast Arcanatime is 1.32s which gives a dpa around 23.17 Compare this to other, similar attacks that you may want to put a full dmg set in. Those that are sub 8s recharge and not very proccable. Fire Blast dpa 22.11 Project Will dpa 17.39 Ice Blast dpa 16.25 Power Blast dpa 16.55 Now the fun part is that the healback is always a flat -19.57 and doesn't scale with added dmg. It also takes 10s for the healback to occur, so if you can kill something in ~10s you can look at the dmg as 50.16 which is a dpa of 38

I'm usually a ranged AT kinda guy but I've been feeling my 2 Brute's lately and happened to peak in here. I'll drop my Rad/Fire/Psi build below. It's got: 45.4 melee def, 3.5s off perma Hasten, good hp via Consume, and solid resists across the board. Shouldn't have any endurance problems and can run everything. Only thing it lacks is extra proccing. Due to no ddr it's still probably a good idea to mostly carry purples and heals. Brute (Radiation Melee - Fiery Aura).mbd

"Best" is going to be pretty subjective here. It also partially comes down to playstyle - ranged defense, s/l defense, resistances etc. Each version would have their strengths and weaknesses. In general, Controller's have long cooldowns and Marine has a few. You're going to want to get close to perma Hasten without Shifting Tides if possible. Quick breakdown of each version and what you're looking for: Ice Frozen Armor is giving s/l def and some resistances. S/l helps people work around melee a bit better because of how common it is. IMO it gets streaky though and random attacks will punch you in the face. Ideally you should also bump up ranged defense or slow resistance slightly. Ranged because it's a good all-rounder based on positioning. Slow res because your survivability revolves around your powers being up and available. You get an additional single target attack which you need. You get some nice aoe and other utility which you subjectively don't need with Marine powers. Leviathan Shark Skin is a res armor with s/l/c resistances. If you go this route I highly suggest either slow resistances or high ranged defense. You can still work in and out of a mob utilizing cc and positioning to take advantage. You get even more aoe's which you subjectively don't need more of. I s'pose it partially comes down to if you want a full single target attack chain or an extra aoe or something. I took a look at the Ice version and overhauled it a bit. For the sake of brevity I won't go into the nitty gritty of why I changed what. Like that you need slotted accuracy in Hymn of Dissonance still for the proc's to hit etc etc. It's got 2s off perma Hasten, 44.3 s/l def, 31.6 ranged def, f/c res capped, rest of res are decent. Controller (Symphony Control - Marine Affinity).mbd

Been seeing a bunch of Marine/Water posts floating around. My Fire/Marine Controller is closing in on 50 and this seems like a good chance to do a breakdown of how I've been slotting powers. It looks like you've done work on trying to figure things out, you're just missing some things here and there. You've got the right idea, though! Here's my Marine slotting breakdown: Shoal Rush - Hit or miss. It's useful but it varies on your build and requirements. Can do anything from 1 accuracy to set mule. Soothing Wave - Standard recharge based healing set. Add an accuracy if you want the -dam to for sure hit mobs. Toroidal Bubble - Mainly should be slotted for resistances. Just one 50+5 endmod will solve your end problems. Whitecap - Damage set ideally proc based. Can proc it out, including FF +rech. Tide Pool - Usually a +slow or a slow/endred. Can set mule. Brine - Anything from 1 accuracy to boosting the -heal but there's a decay. Shifting Tides - Just an endred unless you feel the extra damage added is worth being slotted for. It's mainly the +rech +dam I'm after. Barrier Reef - Does both def and absorb and ideally needs to be slotted for both. I split the difference between 2 sets. Power of the Depths - A bit of a pain to make it perma unless you can ideally frankenslot it. I can usually get it ~10s off. Couple of things with your own build: Your healing is already high with Barrier Reef and Soothing Wave, along with the Defender ATO procs. All of the healing procs sprinkled around aren't really doing too much. Can nix most of them. Split Superior Vigilant Assault set in 2. Procs like Perf Shifter +end and Panacea should be working in Barrier Reef and Power of the Depths to proc on your teammates. This is a decent enough place for them if possible. But they should ideally not go in powers like Dehydrate. Dominate is overkill as another single target attack. Unless its a procced out heavy hitter I'd drop it over Arcane Bolt for the reasons below. You could use some LotG's. Slightly diving into the Water Jet debate... It's solid dpa and when it works it works pretty well. When it gets into rhythm the Water Jet - Water Jet - Dehydrate - Hydro- Water Jet - Water Jet etc is decent enough. If it doesn't line up or fails for some reason it feels super bad though. I actually like the inclusion of Arcane Bolt here because you can potentially use an Empowered Arcane Bolt if Water Jet gets wonky. If you end up including Sorcery in the build, defenses will go down due to loss of toggles. Also potential LotG mules - it isn't drastic, though. Ranged defense at 45% usually helps you avoid cc if you stay at ranged. Rune of Protection covers more broad cc and the slight loss of 45% ranged def. If going ranged def, be sure to fly above mobs heads or run out after using Whitecap and they stand back up. I'll attach a build here to show what is possible. It has 38.5 ranged defense, 75 s/l and other great resists across the board. There is 2s off of perma Hasten, but Shifting Tides bridges that gap. Comes with Rune of Protection. Adds procs to bring up Hydro/WaterJet/Dehydrate. Honestly the end management is overboard and it can run everything and more. Could probably rejiggle it some. Defender (Marine Affinity - Water Blast) Sorc.mbd

Procs are pretty weird. Some of my information comes from different sources throughout the years. One of the original proc threads is this one: https://forums.homecomingservers.com/topic/5290-procs-per-minute-ppm-information-guide/ The 10s CD is in toggles but also pseudopets like Bonfire, Rain of Fire etc. I think some pseudopets have a decent chance of activation on initial drop but it could vary by power. There's also that accuracy to potentially account for. I just generally stay away from proccing toggles/pseudopets and proc instant activation powers as a rule of thumb. Saves me the headache of trying to calculate what I'm getting. But definitely do your own testing! Bonfire could be amazing for procs, I mostly use it as additional soft cc.

The builds posted are pretty tanky with multilayered defenses and they do great aoe dmg while focusing well on controls. I'm surprised no one mentioned though, a big part of soloing involves having a single target dmg rotation for hard targets. Without it your soloing is going to revolve around how fast you can whittle down bosses. If you want to be able to have an easier time, you should 100% proc out Char and at least pick up Fire Blast. As to Bonfire, most just put the KB-KD and use it as soft cc. Procs in powers like Bonfire are normalized to only activate every 10s, with a reduced % chance based on larger radius size. In addition I believe someone figured out that procs themselves require accuracy slotting in the power to hit. The most proccable aoe power is usually Flashfire, it just needs lots of accuracy. If you can slot Fire Cages for dmg it's worth it, especially if you're low on other options. Can be pretty spammable. My favorite thing to do is add 5 piece Posi (without the recharge piece) + another proc. Also don't rely on Agility Core if you can, it acts like slotting recharge into powers and lowers the proc chances. Lastly, Siphon Speed is the lynchpin that revolves around your own recharge. This build generally needs good recharge, don't forget about it. You can set the stacks in mids to 1-3 stacks to boost your recharge. You can reasonably expect to hit it once every ~60s for 1 stack. If you're diligent and press it every ~30s set it at 2 stacks, ~20s set it at 3 stacks. Here's a build example to show you more options. It strips out some defenses for dmg basically, it just lacks slow resistance. Still around 39 ranged def, 50 s/l res, excellent end management. Perma Hasten around 2 stacks of Siphon Speed. Ranged def bc the goal is to Flashfire (procced) at ranged, move in with Hot Feet, Fulcrum, and Fireball. Things should be mostly dead by the time Flashfire wears off. Full single target attack rotation. Controller (Fire Control - Kinetics).mbd

Unfortunately Controller's are probably the only AT that can end up doing practically no damage unless you go out of your way to fit it in - although that does vary by primary. I definitely agree with @tidge, damage procs elevate the dps viability of Controller's in today's meta. The only thing I worry about is if they ever decide to "fix" or massively change procs in some way. Controller's as a whole would have to be tweaked to at least be capable of dps. The current issue goes a bit deeper though. With the reliance on procs that means you miss out on set bonuses as well. Typically the single target hold gets procced out to have at least 1 decent attack. Increased accuracy requirements need to be met here and there. Premium end costs have to be paid. Powers like Arcane Bolt need to be taken. The Overpowering Presence ATO provides minimal bonuses compared to say the Corruptor one that can be split for extra recharge. All of that together makes reaching building metrics like perma Hasten recharge, 45 def etc. that much harder. I find that other AT's, even Dom's have an easier time. I often end up relying on the gimmicks of the support secondary to hit build goals. Building a Controller that does dmg and other things well is a challenge. As things stand I think Controller's are in a decent enough place. It would be cool if they could extended Containment to Fear and Confuse or something. Ironically I actually use my controls most often on my Controller's. With procced controls being the source of my dmg I have to use them. While on my Dom's I usually have to stop dpsing to use a control.

I theorycrafted an Electric/Stone Sent and came up with some similar issues. Stone is slightly awkward with the large Fire/Cold defense hole. I shuffled some things in a build and you can fix the hole with lots of full Winter sets, it just gets very expensive and you can't proc very well. Even excluding that, in order to fill defense/res gaps and still get something like perma Hasten you have to utilize more full sets. I personally think Stone is easier to achieve multiple build goals with if you don't proc too much. Around 33% DDR is all I managed to achieve with it either. I don't think you need to worry about resistances to a huge extent, a solid baseline and being at hp cap should do a lot. In general I think your end usage could use some work, it's relying very heavily on Incarnates. I'll throw out some quick suggestions I spotted: Crystal Armor is your end mod. Add at least 1 50+5 endmod and that will pull most of the work. Terra Firma is your accuracy and is auto. Just add a 50+5 tohit. Drop Tactic's entirely, don't think you even need it. Maybe pick up a melee Epic attack for Tactic's? I'll attach my Elec/Stone for a slightly different take on a Stone. I pretty much accepted the Fire/Cold defense hole (partially covered by melee and ranged def) as a sacrifice for perma Hasten. I also went overboard on end management cause I was working with Voltaic Sentinel. I really like Stone Armor as one of the higher dmg Sent Armor's due to the dmg proc. It's just a bit finicky to work with in a more defensive capacity. Sentinel (Electrical Blast - Stone Armor)$$.mbd

You can just take the build I posted above and switch Energy for Martial. It's almost a 1-1 exchange, just switch Caltrops for Thunder Kick. If you do that you get the same build stats: 45 ranged defense, perma Hasten, 50 s/l res. The two 50+5 recharges that were in Power Up go to Envenomed Blades which makes it almost perma. Could switch out Psi Nado for Spinning Kick or Caltrops or something.

No probs! Happy to help. Spectral Wall can definitely have some uses. Immobs help with AV's running and generally stopping runners etc. It also has an extra -tohit debuff. The dpa isn't amazing but a big issue is that it's dot damage. In todays gogogo meta, 9s to do its full damage can be a pain. With a 4s recharge, it's also not very reliable for procs. Fighting is definitely one of my go-to pools for defense and s/l res. However, in builds its usage can be variable based on a large number of factors. The main limiting quality is that it also requires Kick or Boxing as a dead power - it's a struggle trying to squeeze in those LotG mules. In the build I posted above, Psionic Mastery was taken which provides a strong s/l/psi res shield in Mind Over Body. This gets s/l res to almost 50% which will more than suffice for an already "squishy" AT. Ideally you could get Tough on top of that to hit 75%, but you don't have to. The build above focuses on ranged defense. I have a Plant/Martial with ranged defense as well. This is a playstyle choice and something that should always be considered in fights - you're safer with range. Once you keep that in mind, always remember to lead with cc. This is doubly true while leveling and engaging packs of enemies. Once enemies are cc'd, then you can enter and/or mix in melee. It's just the moment a Boss runs up on you, you have to be ready with Blind. On Illusion Dom, PA won't taunt but they provide a distraction. This means you have to lean into the other fastest recharging cc's you have which is mainly Gleam and also Spectral Terror. Most of Martials kit is at ranged, the most desirable reason's to go into melee are Thunder Kick and Dragon's Tail. Unfortunately while leveling slots are at a premium. I don't usually try to build early perma Dom - my personal advice for slotting a Dom while leveling: Get the standard slots in Health and Stamina for the end uniques. End is always a concern leveling. Hasten 2 or (temporarily) 3 slotted. Put majority of slots into attacks. I barely bother with any toggles except CJ or Hover and Superior Invis with 1 or 2 slots for endred or LotG before level ~35. Slot Gleam asap. PA might be able to just get away with some recharge until you get slots. Most other Illusion powers could get away with 1 slot Accuracy, maybe a little bit for recharge. Especially Spectral Terror.

A few quick changes in general: Maneuvers is overslotted. Evasive Maneuvers is only usually used as a LotG mule. Energy Torrent can be dropped for a LotG mule. Time Stop is (arguably) overslotted. Put 5 slot Panacea and 1 rech/end from an end set in Chrono Shift. This will max its recharge. Do note that the healing/end buffs only work for 30s out of the full duration. Temp Invulnerability needs more slots for resistance and a better resistance baseline. Slowed Response could use some more -def from a -def set. Outside of that advice, you could take this build in a few directions. You could focus on less dmg and more buffs/debuffs/cc... or you could get just enough recharge defense etc and then focus on proccing and picking up Arcane Bolt etc for more dmg. Ideally Gravity Distortion would take 5 dmg procs. It would require some rebalancing but you can theoretically get some good dmg numbers.

Your build should work for most content in general, I feel like you may be missing the forest for the trees somewhat. It seems like you're fighting for every s/l defense and s/l res bonus you can. This isn't terrible in theory, but you're sacrificing in other areas that could use some work - like end management and recharge. In play, s/l defense is very streaky. It's not bad and will work ok but now and again you will get hit with something that blows past your defenses and leaves you reeling. In this regard, you need to stay on top of cc and boost recharge to help your cc and buff uptime. In reality what is keeping you up here is good resistances, Entangling Aura hold stacking in melee, and heals/absorbs. My advice will center around this. Cut back on s/l defense and res bonuses in favor of recharge. The res boost is nice especially bc you only have Tough to work with, but it won't make or break the build to fall under 75% s/l res. Drop Lifegiving Spores. It's a much more situational power and isn't a very large benefit. Pick up Gravity Distortion for a single target hold. Entangling Aura + Gravity Distortion should lock a boss. Focus on recharge bonuses. You're nowhere near perma Hasten and your Overgrowth is up less than 60/120s. Getting Overgrowth up more will also help your end management. I kept your same powers that you selected and made the changes I suggested. This build is at the extreme end of what you could possibly do. S/l defense was lowered to 39%, s/l res to 53%. Hasten is roughly 2s off perma in exchange. End management is much stronger and you have a hair more dmg capability. Spiritual will put you well past perma Hasten and and get Overgrowth/Wild Bastion almost perma. Controller (Gravity Control - Nature Affinity).mbd

In order to give you some help I put together a Regeneration template. This is entirely my opinion but I believe this template maximizes most of the benefits of Regen for Sent's. In general what Regen is giving is good baseline resistances with Resilience. You can and should beef this up with Tough for better s/l res. Take advantage of the max hp boosts which work together with the +regen to give you more hp/s. Max out Instant Regen for the absorb to cover you. In a contrary opinion, the only things you need recharge for is Reconstruction and Moment of Glory, Second Wind is easily perma-able if getting close to perma Hasten - even without slotted recharge. Reconstruction is slightly less important for Sent's with Instant Regen. It's a good idea is to have some slight bump to defense to help stagger incoming attacks. A breakdown of what you're working with: Fast Healing - Slot this to max out the regen. Quick Recovery - 1-2 slots for Performance Shifter and endmod. This thing covers almost all your end needs. Instant Regen - Max out for the absorb. Dismiss Pain - Max out the +hp. Integration - Max out the regen. Resilience - Max out the res. Second Wind - Can save some slots and just add a +heal. Reconstruction - Slot for heal and recharge. Moment of Glory - An "oh crap" button. I just use it as a LotG mule. You can add recharge to have it up more often. This template assumes that you're going for some level of perma Hasten. You should try to get close on a Sentinel due to the fastest recharging nukes. It maximizes each of the Regen powers to their full potential. Has Tough to max s/l. It includes just about every "unique" enhancement you should need - regen/hp/defense/res/rec. You can switch out Combat Jumping for your choice Hover/Stealth etc. Can switch the Reactive Armor sets for a different set bonus. Second Wind should bring you to Sentinel hp cap or thereabouts. You can of course reduce the slotting if you don't want the full bonuses or need slots for attacks. Then frankenslot what you might need. This is mainly meant as a guide to visually show how to go about maxing Regen. Otherwise just fill in your attacks etc! Sentinel (Regeneration Template).mbd

The wording in the description is a bit confusing, check: https://cod.uberguy.net/html/power.html?power=corruptor_buff.sonic_resonance.sonic_dispersion&at=corruptor and look at the bottom for "Entities Affected." It works on Allies and Self. This is the most important ability for your own resistances and status protection. To add to the thread, Sonic probably shines more on a Defender. Why? You have to spend ~3+ slots on Sonic Haven and Sonic Barrier for minimal gain to yourself. This is less slots for attacks. To use Disruption Field with more regularity, Defender's have better end management. The resistances are higher on a Defender. Although the fire-and-forget nature of the powers could lend itself to focusing on the Blast set for a Corruptor. If Sonic does one thing very well, it is to boost resistance. On my Defender with current slotting and between the shields and Dispersion, I'm adding +53% resistance to all but Psi. That's pretty huge. Lets break down resistances that I commonly see amongst "squishy" builds. This probably applies slightly less to AT's with an Armor. "Outlier" resistances here refer to those that aren't s/l resistance which is typically easier to get. Low Resistance - For anything but s/l resistance, often the only thing boosting outlier resistances is Shield Wall and Reactive Defenses uniques. Maybe some set bonuses thrown in there. Outlier resistances here usually fall around 10-15% for that reason. Medium Resistance - Typically seen if someone can only fit Tough into their build for some reason. With slots dedicated to it and uniques, you're going to see s/l resistances around 30%. High Resistance - This occurs when someone takes an Epic resist shield. In some cases s/l resistance will jump to 50% with some outlier resistances hitting around the 30% range. If Tough is also used, s/l will hit 75%. What this means is that for squishy AT's in particular at the Low/Med end, you have to add anywhere from 45%-65% resistance to get them to 75%. This is especially true for those outlier resistances. I do agree Sonic could use a pass similar to Force Field eventually. Sonic Cage doesn't get much use and Sonic Repulsion is skippable. Clarity is partially redundant because Sonic Dispersion already covers Hold/Immobilize/Stun protection. Weirdly enough I wish -dmg was proliferated to the set. Force Field not only buffs defense but gives DDR and also debuff's -DDR in Damping Bubble. For enemies, -dmg is similar to +res for players and goes past the "cap." Just an idle thought.

Whoops! Looks like your post kept getting buried but I remembered seeing it. This forum is movin' and groovin'. Hopefully you're still enjoying the character. There's a couple of aspects to talk about here. You'd like to avoid mez and there's a few ways to do this. Some low hanging fruit are powers such as Rune of Protection and several Incarnate powers at the high end. If you can't fit those into your build, there is also ranged defense. If ranged powers aren't hitting you in the first place, ranged mezzes won't hit you either. Also, diligent use of Control powers to lock down enemies etc. Next up is recharge. Unfortunately it is almost impossible to get Wild Bastion and Overgrowth 100% perma without going after unreasonable amounts of recharge. This will end up causing you to make sacrifices in other aspects of your build for minimal gain. Fortunately you can still get them down to ~5s off without fighting for every second. It's also not life or death to get them perma'd. On the other hand, Wild Growth is easy to make perma and is more important for the resists. Right now your build basically has no defense and low resistances. Even if you have access to heals and try to stay back, in harder content where your controls might not be effective you're going to be taking crippling hits. Advice breakdown: Cut back on the recharge and boost ranged defense. You can probably get to around ~5s off perma Hasten and then use an Alpha Incarnate that boosts recharge to get over perma Hasten. You'd have to pick up defense toggles and drop some other powers to go this route. Beef up your resistance toggles and Wild Growth for resistance. Nature boosts resistance well and you should try to take advantage. Salt Crystals is skippable. Sleeps are weak cc and its only addition is -def. Quicksand is skippable but nice to have. It's autohit which can help for some enemies. Entangling Aura is very nice on Controller's unless you can't stand it. The hold stacks with itself and gives you good survivability. Entangling Aura + Fossilize should hold most melee attackers. I'll attach a build with my idea's for reference. It has about ~5s off perma Hasten, with Agility Core it's over perma Hasten. Wild Growth will be perma with or without Agility. Ranged defense is 41.8, s/l resistance 75, other resistances are at a better baseline. I tried to keep all of your powers with a few exclusions. This is a no dmg build and Stone Cages is typically used to setup Containment, so it is skipped here. Quicksand and Salt Crystals were also dropped. If you hate Entangling Aura you could drop it for Quicksand. Controller (Earth Control - Nature Affinity).mbd

Yup, totally agree. That additional -res is nice and Hibernate ends up working out as you described. Final build testing will let you feel out where you need to make changes. During testing, I would eliminate Hibernate from the equation then and consider Hoarfrost. Only because the low s/l res means you might take a big hit. The Prev Med absorb proc has a higher chance to go off as you get low hp, it has saved me many times for clutch moments. Hoarfrost is also a long cooldown heal + max hp. Have fun with it! 😄

Yuppers! Winter sets work very well and cover many bases but if you're trying to squeeze in extra things like recharge, melee defense etc? Suddenly by replacing them you're giving up huge bonuses. I believe you've achieved a satisfactory compromise for your needs. Solid job! It's more difficult to achieve perma Hasten with your additional requirements. Here, Seismic mechanics can help make up for being ~15s off perma and partially cover that gap for you. With Seismic attacks reducing the recharge of other Seismic powers by 1s. Quick efficiency remarks: Switch the regular enhancements in Hasten for the Invention versions and +5 em. At about 1.8 net gain endurance, you're right about where you need to be. With the steady healing in Cauterize Blaze and (small) heal in Healing Flames, you might not need Power Transfer heal proc in Stamina. If you find yourself needing end you could do Perf Shifter end proc in Stamina and Muscle Radial instead. This will work just great in normal content. The emphasis on melee defense, side addition of aoe def, heavy resistances, cc protection, and access to heals will do well. I should have rephrased that earlier. The only thing this build might fall short on now is perma Hasten and additional dmg in the form of procs. This is negated by having 4 single target attacks and a huge number of aoe attacks. If you're trying to reach 45% perfectly? I don't think it matters that much or at least coming in slightly under isn't a huge detriment. I think? Fire Farming was made harder recently with targets over cap taking potshots typed as "ranged" or something. Not a pro at Fire Farming. Only other thing I can say is that this thing will be crazy expensive with 8 purp sets 😭 But you're a Fire Farmer so it might be ok.

Sorry to the OP for playing back and forth with your build lol. I completely agree with your assessment and your viability of the build. I wanted to leave the OP with something a bit more viable so I took your edit and made some additions. Basically I nixed Glacier and redeployed slots. Ranged defense only went down to 38. This will at least bring s/l resist up to 30. I switched the lowest dpa single target attack for Deafening Wave bc 5 seemed too many. They now have Hibernate (can switch for Hoarfrost) as an "oh crap" button and even heal, with the Prev Med absorb proc for emergencies. This would probably still be squishy but brings it into viable territory. Dominator (Ice Control - Sonic Assault).mbd

You've got a clear focus of what you want with this build which is most of the battle. The execution is slightly off in some areas. I know you're not trying to min/max, but lets realign a few things to make it stronger. Incoming bullet points! I see you've picked some purple sets but chosen some oranges instead of the purple equivalents. Are you looking for a cheaper build with less purples or ok with going heavy purps? Purple sets that increase recharge drastically will let you use other sets to increase your margins elsewhere. In general, you could use even more recharge to help smooth out your perma Dom. Suggestion time: At 83% global recharge outside of Hasten you're right on the edge of falling off perma Dom. Go under 80% and you're off, although the FF proc in Shockwave is helping. Going above 95% global recharge reduces your risk of falling out of perma Dom. In regards to perma Dom and Hasten. Hasten needs to be slotted with 2 50+5 recharges. Press + on numpad to do this. It's pretty much mandatory. As your only resistance toggle, Tough could use more slots. S/l damage is common and you always have a 5% chance to be hit, you don't want it to hurt. Your endurance management is slightly low even without Arctic Air/Disruption Aura. Health can take 2 more slots and Stamina 1 more for end procs to help manage. Glacier and Flash Freeze can potentially be dropped completely. You could even do Stealth for LotG mules 😃 At the very least, these are where I would draw slots from. It wouldn't be horrible to slot them with 1 50+5 accuracy and be semi-functional. Glacier is on a long cooldown and is mostly used as an "oh crap" button. Sleeps are fairly weak cc and pretty sure the sleep portion is auto-hit. Also drop a slot from Shout. That 6th piece Decimation proc never goes off. Drop a slot from Weave and add Kismet +acc to Combat Jumping. As you've noticed, Cold Snap and Ice Slick as opener, Arctic Air to keep cc going is the way to go. AA reeeeaally needs end red. You could potentially do a set shuffle between 3 powers here. Superior Ascendency to Arctic Air. Do 5 set Ice Mistral to Cold Snap. Then 5 set Apocalypse to Shout. This gives AA end red and you don't really lose anything. That should get you oriented a bit better and tighten things up. If you find yourself with more recharge that you feel is overkill, you might be able to shuffle things a bit more.

No problem. There are many nuances to making a build and defining some outer parameters can help narrow focus. Winter sets are very strong defensively, I typically see them in melee builds or people trying to get slow resistance. However, building involves very specific puzzle pieces and too many Winter sets means you're probably sacrificing: recharge sets, ranged defense sets, accuracy sets etc. "Squishy" characters like Corruptor's, Controllers, Doms have a far easier time building ranged and s/l defense over melee and aoe defense, although it isn't impossible. Rune of Protection isn't 100% necessary. It's more just the low hanging fruit you can grab to cover some contingencies. The worst thing as a squishy is to get cc'd and not be able to run away from the boss coming at you. Ranged defense covers a good bit. Probably the easiest thing to do to become tanky is to take an Epic s/l defense shield. You would have to drop Charged Armor, but Scorpion Shield is visually acceptable. Make sure to use Tough. Then you could beef up with ranged defense sets and sprinkle in some recharge for Hasten. In terms of defense numbers - ideally you want 45. Another reason the other build can work for normal content, not just Fire Farms, is the 33 ranged defense and 40 aoe defense it has. If you can get 30-35 defense, a purple shield inspiration will bring you to 45. This is why that build is more "good for teams" where buffs will cover you but not as great as "solo's +4." Personally I'd just use Superior Winter's Bite (ranged defense), the others I would only use to increase s/l defense if you really need to. Purple sets featuring recharge are very strong. Also use the Corruptor ATO's. Otherwise, you'll probably be relying on Orange/Yellow sets. Edit: A good opportunity came up, check the Storm/Kin thread below this one. They didn't include the attachment but look at the pics @tricon posted. You can roughly port that or take ideas for Elec/Kin.