Sovera

Not sure if super durable is really a necessity. The TF is not one to be face tanked from what I've read (didn't do it yet). Just like Psi melee... Well, it's not great. But if it' the mob's weakness then perhaps that's what's needed. Are they impervious to CC like ITF mobs? Because Ice Patch might be a good help. Probably EM to focus fire on the important mobs that need to be put down ASAP.

Yes, MMs sort of need a way to heal their pets. Cold Domination is great and all, but even if you had softcapped defense for your pets (which can be achieved with Cold but is going to require more than level 20) hits will still happen and heals will still be needed. Something perhaps easier since you don't mess with IOs would be changing to Thermal. Your shields will help your pets live longer and your heals can keep them up. It still has anti-AV tools like Cold has.

Proof's in the pudding, git in there and tell us how it went!

My opinion: Controllers as a CC AT have become obsolete with the increase in power. Namely survival. The -current- role of a Controller is a buff/debuff role, not particularly a CC role. Yes, I know, we have the paradigm that no AT is needed and if we AFK for ten minutes and return the team will have continued without having noticed. This is true. But what happens when the AT is focused towards doing less damage and in exchange making the team more able to survive? That's a double whammy. This is not strictly only for Controllers. For years Tankers were obsolete since a Brute could take over while Tankers were needed for 2% of the content. Only a masochist would play a Tanker since they were so slow at killing and for what? Extra mitigation? I have a whole thread about how a 'squishy' Fire Armor Tanker can do most things in game and that more survival is not needed. This 'more survival is not needed' unfortunately applies to Controllers. But yes, I am in the Controller forums and people who are here love their AT. It's understandable that me saying this comes as pissing in someone's cereals. I don't say it to be mean, or to pontificate, I make teams near everyday and don't post saying I refuse Controllers nor do I boot them out of the group. This whole argument came up simply due to the use of mass immobilizes. One good thing is the shift in difficulty. No longer do we go in to face tank things like eight solo players. Controllers finally get their comeuppance as they are begged to come and help. All that is now needed is the proliferation of that difficulty because that's what was lacking these past years. An AT tailored to help the team survive requires a scenario where the team is at risk.

Gott damn, I would say it's some triple A customization level but I've been so hilariously disappointed with character customization in other games.

You are missing the context. And as an outsider looking without context it looks like an horrid community ganging up on some poor casual who dared to express their anti meta views. The context is that Dian has the habit of popping into the forums and then make a thread explaining how to play the game. As an example In one of their most recent threads they explained how people who play support ATs (tanks included) and take their attacks (and use them) are playing the game wrong. Followed by a proud example on how his character is level X and only has the first attack because the game forces them to. So you are catching the comets tail. If you can be bothered you can check their posting history and see the initial posts with these nuggets and the community trying to steer them off the WoW mentality. But the threads keep coming and pearls of anti-wisdom keep on being dropped and, well, at some point some people stopped assuming ignorance.

I'm not a hardcore DB fan so I miss on the nuances, but for the shorter attack loop to be touted as the best it has to be some nuance being skipped. Probably the double BF influence. But now with only 5% chance of a combo missing the gap between the two must have shrunk some.

If you can? Sure, you can, but ugh, why would you do that to yourself? With (a) rare exceptions pool powers are purposefully made weak as to be unappealing. As a result job accomplished: power pool attacks are not taken. It can work as long as you dont decide to fight an AV because that is the one moment you would be unable to whittle enemy HP since they would handily regenerate. It is probably better to pick one attack you like and work it into your regular attack chain.

The GM has a point though. I do not agree with some things like being called a cheater, answering with idiot, and my post gets deleted and I get an infraction. In the meanwhile the post calling me a cheater is still there. Obviously double standards are a thing. But in this case they are right. Why the diatribe? Guy does not listen, guy does not care, then why make the very public sneering? It is not like he is listening, correct? It is playing to the audience. Just put him on ignore.

Re-did the Fire/Stone to test the revamped Stone Melee. Unfortunately Fault did not pass muster. Its roleplay still needs to be on the ground for it to be used which makes trying to use with Hover an impossibility. Tremor has this but to a lesser effect. We can use it with Hover, but need to be near the ground. Which is acceptable. A pity they could not share code. In any case I gave it a test and even with a Brute (who does more damage) and on the low levels (where Fury is astoundingly good), and with a full Fury bar, and with Build-up + Gaussian... it still left minions at half HP. Color me unimpressed in the attempt at giving Stone Melee a mid level AoE to tidy the other ATs until 32. I understand that there is a hefty depletion of a power's budget due to the strong CC Fault has, which leads to silliness by alternating Fault and Tremor, but, the set remains still in need of a mid level AoE. Not for us though. All hail Tankers the master AT! So, the shaved time in Tremor was the linchpin that the set needed to get moved a tier or three. Right now it's gooooooooooood. A very definite stamp of approval from Sovera! And unlike other lesser (hehe) combos/ATs we can rely on Burn straight away at Posi 1 which fixes the AoE problem until Tremor is available After PLing myself to 23 I start on Posi 1 at +0x6 and melted my way through, one death when CoT bullshit managed to get at verrrrrrrrry end, the two groups just before the shadow simulacrum. Darn shame. At seeing how easy it had been I bumped to +0x8 for Posi 2. Lets keep in mind it's packed with CoT doing CoT BS... and even so it got done, no deaths, 47 minutes. The secret ingredient? A FF proc in both mallets. Burn rushing back, Build-up rushing back. Build-up at those levels with a Gaussian is a killer and CoT BS is laughed at. I then skipped Synapse and went to Yin to test Tremor. And it was beautiful. It got done in 46 minutes (yes, I noticed the similar times for both TFs), no deaths, +1x8. To put in perspective the Fire/Dual Blades I was testing yesterday got Yin done in 1:06h so it's a 20 minute improvement. The ST is still definitely Tanker damage though. It relies on Burn to pump it and it relies on constantly using Build-up and Fiery Embrace. Do not try to save BU + FE, the FF procs will bring them back and no one wants to whittle enemies. EM it ain't, but then nothing but EM is EM, but it's good enough and the constant FF procs make the game very smooth. The KD/KU can't be overlooked. It was common to kill Freak Tanks before they could heal. Ultimately I just found it -fun-, which is important, but I'm pretty damage oriented. One good thing about Tanker is being forced to take Stone Fists. It would feel bad to take it when it has no use outside of exemplaring but since we're forced... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ That makes for an easy ST rotation even as low as Posi 1. Not a -great- rotation, and it does have gaps at such low levels, but it allows for Heavy Mallet, Stone Fist, Stone Mallet, Stone Fists. This will be bread and butter all the way until 38 when we can move to Seismic Smash, Stone Mallet, Heavy Mallet, Stone Mallet. The recharge is not good enough to make this gapless (outside of a FF proc) but it's close enough for my purposes. Anyone else who wishes can use Stone Fist in that gap though I'd advise to pick a couple slots from somewhere and boost Stone Fist if it's going to be used as the current slotting is just for exemplaring/leveling. I have tried this build in the past and it was endurance heavy, but the new build eschews Maneuvers for the nearly free Combat Jumping while also tweaking the slotting to no longer need Tough toggled on to reach 90%. Assault was also dropped to up Slow resistance and free a slot. This leaves the build at 1.86 consumption with 3.82 EPS. As usual it relies on two ATO stacks and Barrier to reach 45% to S/L and 90% to SL/E/N.

No worries. Good to hear you're having fun o/

Yep. Nothing in the build does not go under level 50. The original build as posted works very very well all the way down to level 1, but really takes off at level 13 (exemplared) which is when Burn comes active. When you do as low as Positron part one you have access to Frost, Burn, Build-Up and Ice Patch. You'll be good to play with the family, fam.

You'll have to explain what you mean by 'superior enhancements don't examplar at all'.

Nah, not offended. I started amused by being called out on the 0.3 gap and then went on rambling like an old man. Strikerfox is correct that the gaps add up. But in my opening post I did say I picked DB because I need a set with few powers in order to fit all of Stone Armor. An extra power and somehow finding five extra slots because of a 0.3 gap runs contrary. The extra power, sure, just switching from Flying to Leaping would free a power, but the five slots might be a bit harder, and at that point the build might as well be redone from scratch because no point in getting so much recharge when the BF - AV combo is so forgiving in terms of recharge needed plus one of the powers now taking a FF proc anyway. In practical terms and outside of pylons which are one of the very few times we hit something for minutes, I don't see the need for a perfect gapless attack chain. In regular play which is 95% of the game we keep moving when a target dies, even repositioning so the cone hits more enemies.

There is not much point in insisting. By his own admission in another thread he has no levels 50, he has no cash to invest in slotting, and he has no interest in builds. What Dian speaks of is his opinion as someone playing ultra casually on some randomly slotted build with SOs mingled with DOs. And all of it would be fine and understandable were it not for his occasional pontificating on the forums as he drops pearls of wisdom... ...without owning a level 50. ...without using the IO system. ...with no mastery of an AT or power set since he's constantly making new alts.

In practice there -is- no spillage of mobs seeking squisher team mates, unless two spawns are agroed at once, or an ambush happens that exceeds the Tankers agro limit. At those moments a judicious use of CC will help. As I said above it would be dumbness to berate a Controller from using their tools to control such occasions.

Neither are worth slotting for defense, but they are worth picking as one slot wonders. If you can only pick one then CJ is better for having nearly no cost. I've come to exchange Maneuvers for CJ in my last builds to diminish the EPS costs though it means I'm not buffing the team. As rule both only have a LotG, but one will have the Shield Wall's 5% resist unique.

Not sure what you're smoking but it must be hitting hard. Get off your high horse for two seconds and re-read what the GM wrote. In what Twitterverse do you live in when a request to stay civil is seen as a threat?

Well, it's certainly not a bible so you can try to find the room for one more power and then scrounge five slots from somewhere to make the AV chain. Still feels pedantic to me despite @StrikerFox's math, and a lot of hassle over a 0.25 gap. Lets be honest and look at the game. A pylon is the only thing we hit for 2-3 minutes. AVs tend to melt under one minute. We never ever have the time to run a perfect rotation during regular gameplay since targets are constantly dying and we need to either move, reposition, or pick a new target. But yeah, I'm just throwing a build in and then others can tweak according to their own play style.

Mine does: Saying 'not enough recharge' is a touch pedantic even on your example though. We are talking of a 0.3 second gap. Is that really what will put a damper on things? 😄 I wish my brain could process things like a 0.3 second gap.

Most Controllers don't have AoE damage (outside epic pools) so they just spam mass immobilizes for that extra bit of damage. Single target Contaiment is a different beast that benefits from near anything a Controller can throw at a mob. But even an epic pool fireball contained isn't particularly high damage. We're talking of... what? A third of the HP of +3 minion? Half? I have no idea so someone else chime in. Does it really matter though? No, of course not, it's just some grumbling on the same level of knockback or people 'helping' with Hurricane (same thing, I can try to explain Hurricane is not helping because even careful herding is still moving mobs around needlessly, and mobs who are being steamrolled don't need their tohit debuffed. But the person is sure that they are are helping and I can't muster the energy to argue). Things are still dying, just at a slower pace.

Lets not forget the origin of this is: 'mass immobilizes are useless and only slow down a whole team so the Controller can do an extra 20 DPS, so please don't'. Dunno, seems obvious to me but perhaps not for others. If mass CC is not helping then don't use it. I say mass immobilizes but mass stuns, mass fears, etc all fit in. CC is meant to help a team. If the team does not need it then why use it? Why should seven people need to work around the one person who wants to add 20 DPS to their imaginary DPS meter? People learn not to use their nukes on one mob, so it's the same principle: team is plowing through content then why slow the plowing just to throw powers that scatter mobs? Mass CC is for emergencies. Two spawns agroed at once? Ambush? Tank is over there and the trigger happy Blaster grabbed a different group? Bam! Controller, it's your time to shine! But when everyone is following the tank and it's handled? There's no real point in reanimating this year(s) old argument though. Played with a Controller a couple alts ago and they kept spamming the immobilizes. I asked to go easy with those, twice, they kept using it. I started just dropping the spawn recently immobilized and headed to the next. No one died so it was handled and we both were happy.

Welcome back, Dian, we missed you. And I'm not being sarcastic. You bring a smile to our faces and that's priceless.

*headscratch* Okay.

This and the testing should definitely be in the bug forums.