Wimbochismo

I think that you've explained the differences between the two pretty well. If your question is a meta, which one is better than the other? They each provide the different "flavors" you listed, but in my view it comes down to their slotting. In this case I think they are quite neck to neck depending overall on what abilities you want from each. The way I build Controller's is to be a bit more "selfish." So I'm more worried about hitting my defense goals and then proccing abilities. In Time you typically want a lot of the abilities. On top of that they need some slots. You probably want Shield Breaker in Slowed Response. Heal set in Temporal Mending. Dark Watcher's in Time's Juncture. Perma Farsight which gives ~14.5 defense slotted but needs to be made perma. Enough recharge for perma Hasten and Chrono. On my Time builds, I can typically hit my defense goal and perma Hasten while fully proccing 3 Controller powers. For FF you have the opposite. You can choose or not choose some of the powers and most can be 1 or 2 slotted. Personal FF is a nice life saver. You can slot up the 2 team buffs or 1 slot. All 3 of those powers are any easy LotG. Repulsion Bolt is a 1 or 2 slotter -res now. The only powers to fully slot are Force Bomb for procs, Force Feedback proc and does -res. And Dispersion Bubble which unlike Farsight is just a toggle and easy ~12 defense, no recharge needed. On my FF Controller's I can usually hit defense goals while fully proccing 3 powers + another 2 or 3 powers partially procced. In some cases still maintaining perma Hasten. So it more depends on what kinds of powers (including primary) and what your overall goal is for each. Having easy access to a heal is awesome, being able to proc Fireball or Consume is cool too. I think both are great.

I made a Def, but a Cor would still have higher damage. Since most of the dmg comes from procs though, it's not terribly different. It's up to stronger defense buffs or higher dmg, either would work great. There's not a huge difference the defense buffs give out, something like a 10 defense difference between the two? I didn't bother with Power Boost and instead went Dark to proc out Dark Consumption and make managing end better. Super high defense is desirable, but when people get around 32 even on low defense builds, you only need like a 13 buff to make them hit 45. That's my own take on it, though.

Since I've seen Force Fields coming up in the Def forums, I'll bring it up here. I have a FF/Water Def and the pairing works beautifully. The amount of knockdowns and knockup's is hilarious. I take the selfish view of FF and single slot mule LotG in most of the powers. I fully slot Dispersion Bubble for my own defense (~12 Cor, ~15 Def) and Force Bomb as a proc bomb. You can easily softcap defense and proc the heck out of abilities. With water's procability my Defender build has about 25 procs, and the Corrupter version 22 procs. Still with 45 ranged def, perma hasten, and group defense buffs up to 32 for Def and 25 for Cor. On top of that it's a bubble theme...

😐 I do have to advocate for the combo, as I have an elec/elec/mu. It's one of the rare combo's that you don't have to build for heavy recharge, even skipping Hasten. Most of the abilities you need have short cooldowns and are fine slotted locally with recharge. But if you do go with higher recharge and Hasten you have pretty much every ability at your fingertips at all times. Conductive Aura goes a long way towards helping Controller end problems and the 20ft range goes well with a Hover ranged defense build. Jolting Chain doesn't get much benefit for procs in the chain, but it can take 3 procs. The initial hit will still proc fairly well with an 8 sec recharge so it can be viewed as a single target attack that happens to chain knockdown. It's very fun and very busy.

Without knowing what the build is for, what sets to keep or if you want to be ranged/melee I'll give my opinion. The build looks like it hits most of the highlights of the combo. Procced Carrion Creepers. Procced Poison Trap. Leveraging Venomous Gas. Rune of Protection for cc protection and to keep VG up. It seems like you're trying to push the dmg side of things. Endurance recovery is a bit low, and no Panacea proc. Accuracy vs +4 is a bit up and down on some abilities. Could pick up Tactics. Definitely consider dropping: the Breath, Spirit Tree isn't very useful, and Elixir of Life - it has a crash, unless you just want a rez. RoP doesn't benefit from rech slotting, just stick the Gladiator's Armor in it. Overpowering Presence is rarely worth slotting, go Coercive. A 2 slot Blessing of the Zephyr in a travel power is easy range defense/knockback prot. Try to find 2 slots for a Panacea in Health and a recharge in Hasten, it's worth. Controller's benefit from more recharge in general, but you have a fast Seeds and Poison Trap for CC and mitigation, so it may be less important. You still want some recharge in Creeper's though to try and make it perma. Possibly go accuracy/recharge slotting from a proc set to get a side bonus and lower overall procs to 4. I'd pick either ranged or s/l/melee defense and lean into it more, it will open up other slotting options. I'll throw out a few things to consider for both. Melee: Keep Sorcery for RoP, the CC prot will help keep up VG which is important. Lower some of the ranged defense in favor of recharge and s/l defense. Get rid of the 3 powers from earlier and go with something like Ice Storm, Tactics, Vengeance for LotG. Beef up Tough for s/l res. Ranged: Drop Sorcery and go for more of a Hover angle. Melee ranged is something like 7?ft, VG has a 15ft radius. You can effectively hover out of melee and still hit enemies with it, 15ft is still tight but do-able. RoP is less needed in a ranged situation. The only thing to ground for is Poison Trap but you can Seeds first and still waltz right in. Switch out some of the sets like Sovereign Right for Expedient Reinforcement and beef up ranged and recharge. Try to rely less on pure slotting Thunderstrike's. Take a resist epic and beef up s/l res, take a blast and aoe from there. Still try to fit in Tactic's etc. This should at least give you some idea's on options you can take.

@A3r0h No probs, I see what you're aiming for, then. I don't have a specific priority for Controller's, it's more a sliding scale. I'd say the first thing I'd sacrifice is defense for recharge like @Doomguide2005. For Controller's I aim for the typical 45 of my chosen defense. I also build on the cheap with only 1 or 2 purps. I usually overslot for endurance because in lots of cases the end cost on abilities is high and I'm usually proccing. It's the best way to get dmg out of a 'troller. I managed to get like 27 dmg procs in a 'troller build and still hit 45 defense. If I can go with a resist based epic paired with ranged defense it's ideal. That gives you good s/l resist + whatever else and aoe/single dmg paired with containment. I always set my accuracy at +4. Perma hasten if at all possible, cause moar procs. Like Doom again, if you can't get 45 then try to get around 35. Just know to stay on top of/slot your control's as a form of mitigation, especially against an alpha. Most sets have a strong shorter cooldown lockdown like Earth you can Stalagmite's, Symph Confounding Chant etc. Maybe sleep here if you had to? Then lastly you leverage that defensive Secondary like crazy. In your case you're getting perma World of Pain. Like in your build, you can easily achieve 75 s/l and a decent blanket of resist across the board. This is great because Ice has soft control's that are probably letting through dmg here and there. It means you probably won't get chunked down very hard. To that end, Soothing Aura if you pick it is providing constant passive healing. If you get hit too hard you have a PBAoE heal. I think that's your best goal-post unless you go with pure sets. Pure set bonus Controller's usually end up dropping dmg (procs) in exchange for all those other considerations. But this would let you more easily reach those other defense/recharge goals. You just might end up with a no damage 'troller, which isn't a bad thing either.

So I haven't made an Ice Controller here yet, but I have several 'trollers and a Pain Dom. Someone correct me if I'm wrong on any points. In general it looks like you're going to have some issues with endurance (I exclude incarnates when looking at a "base" build). Procs generally don't work as well in toggles and pseudopets. This includes Ice Slick, Enflame, World of Confusion, Arctic Air, and Psionic Tornado. With all the procs you have in yours, they'll definitely be doing work but I feel like you could get more benefits going for straight bonuses. Contagious Confusion proc in AA is still valuable. But CoD says the confusion duration for the mag3 is ~3.75 secs - AA is screaming for end reduction and confusion duration. It looks like the most proccable powers in cold are Cold Snap, Flash Freeze, Block of Ice and maybe Frost Bite. The chance of build up in Block of Ice is a low chance and with it slotted for recharge and Agility alpha it's never going to go off. I believe cold's control comes in the form of layering soft controls. Open with Flash Freeze, Cold Snap or both ? to then get in and Ice Slick with AA for soft control. Chillblain is good single target damage but this looks more like an aoe dmg/control build. It really needs Frostbite to set up aoe containment, confusion doesn't count towards containment. World of Confusion requires accuracy to land its confusion, Anguishing Cry -def helps a bit. I'm not sure how set you are on the Sorcery pool. It isn't doing a ton for you. Pain already has great heals, so Spirit Ward is unnecessary. Enflame is good aoe dmg but replacing it with a procced Cold Snap may be comparable. Share Pain YMMV. Damage on a 'troller is already anemic, but a 25% dmg boost isn't huge when most of your dmg is procs. You're also locked out of being healed for 15 seconds, with soft controls you're going to still be taking some hits. Soothing Aura is actually very nice on Pain. You can put a Numina +regen/rec in it and it will provide that bonus to teammates inside of it. Otherwise Pain is all about perma World of Pain and Anguishing Cry. Anguishing Cry could really use a Shield Breaker set or something, it needs accuracy as well! Hopefully this helps.

Nice, thanks for the info. Most of my experience with Radiation is as an Illusion/Rad, where I never really bothered with CC. I'll have to revisit it on some of my Controller's with lighter control.

Your build is mostly hitting the strong points of this combo (perma hasten etc), but there's a number of things I would change. Controller's are very end heavy with all of their big abilities costing so much. Accelerate Metabolism doesn't just need recharge, it can also use some end mod since it's your main source of end management. Preemptive Optimization set is nice here. Choking Cloud is a hefty endurance cost for little return. The chance and magnitude of the hold isn't good enough when you're already an earth controller. Stalagmites and Earthquake up every fight is most of what you need for control, with Volcanic Gasses as an emergency. I'd also drop EM Pulse (big crash), Mutation (big crash for the rezz'd), and Quicksand (its just -spd -def, all your other abilities do -def). Accuracy against +4 is only around 75% or less across the board. It doesn't matter as much when you have -def, I just don't like landing hits just to land subsequent hits. Tactic's can help here. Could take Ice Storm for more aoe dmg. Stalagmites and Fossilize are the best proccable abilities in earth. Stalagmites just need's more accuracy than normal, and a little recharge so it's harder to proc. Stalagmites is also more of an "opener" when solo to disorient targets and avoid an alpha. Earthquake is more of a one slot +rech wonder, the FF proc is kinda overkill on a perma hasten build. The Overpowering Presence ATO is kinda meh. There is also no Panacea proc. Overall I'd lean more on ranged defense with the combo (avoiding Choking Cloud), and something like a resist epic pool instead. Here's an adapted build I made of one of mine, to show you what I mean. It may not be totally optimized:

Yup! Reverberant is an odd ball. I believe there is a dev post - maybe in the Force Feedback for Symphony, which explains how the pet que's for abilities etc. works. From what I remember, the faster the recharge the sooner he'll use the ability (don't quote me on that). Since he can use every power we can, he has a single target hold, aoe hold, dmging confuse, cone fear, cone stun (ones I value the most). He's perfect as a set mule, since he can take so many sets. You could also go with sets and procs combo's which increase his control-ability and debuffs. Slotting for dmg doesn't do too much because all of his abilities are Controller abilities. In either case, he becomes a pet that layers controls, which allows you to be a more controlly-controller. I was killing my way through a group of mobs for a few minutes when I looked behind me once, only to see him have 2 minions and lt on lockdown but doing almost no dmg. For dmg procs, he can take: Hold: 3 or 4 Confuse: 2 Fear: 1 The fear proc isn't too useful for aoe dmg with only the one. However, the fast recharging hold and confuse, if a part of your rotation will go off fairly frequently. The hold procs will also proc off the aoe hold. In this case he can become a single target dmging pet that layers controls. I'd 100% go with something like acc/mez and your choice of hold/confuse procs if someone wanted to go that way. I've seen him get low on end in long fights, though. All in all Reverberant can be a bit of a hit or miss with how he aims his cone aoe's. But in terms of slotting and versatility I think he can be adapted for many builds, or even discarded as a one slot wonder controller slave in the corner.

Sadly the recharge in /Dark is very valuable in groups, it's definitely worth pushing. Something like Fade doesn't need to be perma perma though, unless you're doing something like 4 star ITF. But until you get to that point, you can always use the step down set from the purples - Decimation for Apocalypse etc. I made some changes to your build - I consider this one more group friendly. I managed to get your original concept down to .5 secs off perma hasten (don't forget to +5 your rech red's and others). The -tohit you can put out mostly makes up for slightly less def. Depending on the number of toggles you run, you may have some endurance issues. Gotta stay on top of Soul Absorption. Personally I would drop some of the recharge slightly so that you can have more solo power. Something like 2 or 3 secs off Fade isn't usually crippling, and you're a controller. Then drop Sorcery entirely and take Fire epic for damage instead. Your single target dmg goes way up with this one.

Symph/Dark is a very careful balancing act in terms of slotting and IO's. /Dark is a very support and utility based set, but if you want the most out of it you have to get near to perma Hasten to also get the def bonus of Fade perma, Soul Absorption, Howling Twilight, and multiple Tar Patch's. On the other hand Symph/ can be very damage oriented, but it requires many dmg procs to get there. Fully procced Hymn. Impassioned Serenade has 8 secs recharge and can take 4 damage procs, it's great as a single target attack for a chain. Dreadful and Confounding with procs for aoe damage. If you care about getting a defense to 45 it can be a bit of a struggle. If you don't then you have a bit more wiggle room for recharge and procs. If you want to up your solo game, proc out Hymn, and Impassioned. Take a single target attack from an app to benefit from containment for a 3 attack chain. Proc Dreadful, and Confounding with what you can. Maybe take an app aoe attack again to benefit from containment and more dmg. In terms of pets, Dark Servant is amazing. Definitely needs accuracy, Cloud Senses with the proc can up his dmg slightly but he's mainly support. Reverb is meh, procs are nice if you can fit em. But I either set mule him or slap a 1 slot accuracy and he's just there to extend the duration of any CC. But both pets are layering CC so they're pretty solid.

I recently made one and she's about 35 right now. I've been churning out a bunch of controller builds lately. I'd say FF is A tier if not higher for 'trollers. Mainly this is due to minimal slotting requirements, power picks if you choose, and Dispersion Bubble. DB fully slotted gives around 12 def all. Thats 12 less def you personally don't have to allocate to hit 45 of your defense type if you wanted to. This opens you up to chase after recharge and procs. In addition to DB, the targeted bubbles do 11 defense out of the gate. With 1 LoTG thats 13, if you also take Maneuvers thats around 4. Most people have the last 16 defense by accident to hit 45. Personal FF, Deflection, Insulation 1 slot LoTG. If Repulsion Bolt was 8 secs recharge like it was before I'd say to proc it like a hold. It would've been great as a procced out part of an attack chain. It doesn't need any accuracy. As it is, 1 or 2 slot wonder with KB/KD and FF recharge. I only use it on hard targets for the -res. Damping Bubble is fun to have. Force Bomb is great with dmg procs and FF recharge. It can essentially become another procced out aoe nuke to start an aoe chain. Mind gives you a Procced Dominate+Levitate+Mes single target attack chain out of the box if you choose. Confuse is Confuse. I skip Mass Hypnosis and Telekinesis. Terrify can be procced and is great for an aoe attack. Mass Confuse is great. Total Dom take it or leave it. Take an epic pool for moar single target dps/aoe dps etc. Sadly Mind doesn't have a good way to set up aoe containment. Force Bomb's low chance to disorient is about it, or Total Dom. But at least you get the -res! Overall it's been crazy fun. Get DB slotted with endreds and def as soon as you get it. Slot your attacks with accuracy + procs like crazy around level 20. You turn into a dice rolling blaster that escorts your unkillable group through TF's. TLDR: Force Field elevates Mind to a wicked good time. Here's what I run:

So, I haven't made a Symph yet but I've been exploring builds for it lately. Controllers are kind of a pain to go after good defense, recharge, CC, and procs without sacrificing something. I'm also not sure how procs do in Impassioned Serenade, and Confounding Chant considering they are dots. Having said that, I was curious so I decided to whip up a build. If this is a teaming build you can get away with being under 45% positional defense. Radiation infection also does hefty -tohit, but you have to remember to keep it up if solo. I've been viewing Impassioned Serenade as a damage attack that just happens to confuse, it also has the same base recharge as single target holds and can be procced. If I could I would've shoved confuse dmg procs/hold dmg procs in Reverb. This build gives you a single target attack chain of Hymn, Serenade, Ice Blast. AoE chain of Confounding, Discord, Frost Breath. Perma hasten, perma buffs, perma debuffs. Takes musculature for more dmg. But you can tweak what you want, ymmv.

I'd say you could probably lose Entangling Aura - the hold is only a chance of mag 1, and you have to skirt the edges of the mob or hover. You also have plenty of CC to work with. Lifegiving Spores can be useful if you stay stationary, it's helpful but not amazing. I just took out LS, gave you Dark Consumption (more end and it does some dmg), shuffled some sets, and you have: 45.5 ranged defense and same recharge etc. I'd probably drop LS and EA entirely. Pick up arcane bolt, and a blast/aoe from fire/ice/earth etc. Then plan on taking agility to fill in some defense/recharge. Containment should make your personal dmg decent. Something like this:

Ranged defense softcapped, almost s/l resist capped, high recharge. Can change out entangling aura for vines. Maybe dark consumption for rebirth if you want it (its also a nice heal). Damage is crappy but support is good. Carrion creepers are procced out.

Here's the one I use. I managed to softcap ranged defense, s/l resistance isn't bad. It's also procced out so you have a semi decentish single target attack chain with Tesla Cage, Jolting Chain, Arcane Bolt. AOE dmg is still crappy but you can Chain Fences into Ball Lightning now and then.

Hi guys! My 2 other defenders haven't felt as impactful for HM ITF's - not bad, but I want to push it a little harder. I'm not the best at builds, but I put together combo's from power sets that I haven't had a chance to play much, that I think could work. I made an emphasis for range defense because it seems like the way to go. Also tried to max out debuffs as much as possible. Let me know which build would work better, or just general build critiques - I'll probably make both at some point. Rad/Beam: I'm leaning towards this build right now. The dmg for assisting against tough targets is stronger, and the debuffs are super strong. Team buffs/heals aren't as great. I'm debating between Fallout and EM Pulse. Fallout seems like it would be amazing with all the deaths that tend to occur. EM Pulse is a great debuff, and could potentially be good for the 2 bots; but the 15s of no endurance sounds deadly. Therm/Rad: This one has stronger buffs/heals. Less dmg/debuff. I think the HM ITF enemies are tough to hit, so the hefty -def may do some work. I also managed to shove in every -res proc.

I took your changes into consideration and came up with this: I'm liking how it looks. Thanks a ton for your suggestions!

Hi guys! My earth/poison is starting to get into the 40's and I whipped together a build. I'm currently in the refining stages before I start implementing it. Some considerations: I mainly team up on my characters. I don't have a farmer/don't usually play the market, so I try to limit myself to 1-2 purple sets to be as self sufficient with inf as possible. With this build I tried push the recharge/accuracy. I know that venomous gas is susceptible to de-toggling so I went rune of protection and clarion. I got recovery as high as I could to counteract the toggles, but a lot of these powers are very end heavy. Finally, I shoved a proc almost everywhere. *wipes sweat* So, questions: My S/L defense is at 39%, but I figured that with VG's -hit I should be solid in melee, is this feasible? I was thinking about dropping clarion destiny and picking up ageless to help with the end situation and smooth out recharge. Then pick up melee hybrid so I can alternate melee/rune for the status protection. Thoughts? Any other considerations for the slotting itself? I could take a Superior Will enhancement out of stone cages and move the slot elsewhere for more recharge or something, but I give up some ranged defense. Switch out Earthquake for Weaken? This is only my 3rd or so official build, so any feedback is welcome. The build:

This is the build that I'm currently using. It's my first level 50 and the first build I've ever made. I was also trying to keep it cheap (can only afford half of it so far). Others might be more optimal with their choices or know more about what they're doing. You generally want World of Pain to be perma, and Anguishing Cry to be close to perma. A few notes about the build: It is not a heavy heal build at all, it's a +resist -resist buff/debuff group oriented specialist. I've found that people mostly need a little top off or one big heal, which this provides. It also does really crappy damage, although you can push it a bit by running Assault, World of Pain, Amplify, and using Share Pain. Stealth should be providing a bit more than 3% defense once revealed, so its r/s/l/e softcapped. Perma hasten. Screech has a knockback proc but you're mainly using it on bosses/AV's so it shouldn't be that annoying. Painbringer is perma on one person. Siren's Song you can switch out for a rez or something if you want. Strategy: In between packs spread around Enforced Morale, or specifically target people who need mez resist/recovery. Keep up Painbringer on whoever is doing the most dmg or needs recovery. Basically that *one* blaster who does tons of dmg but keeps dying from agro and running out of end gets EM/Painb/Grant Invis. On packs I let tanks get agro, then hit Anguishing Cry/Dreadful Wail/back up and Howl.