Frosticus

Lvl 54+3 Sinclair I was like, “oh he looks like that loser Chimera”. He is not. When he gets mad and glows red he wrecks all my other characters with overwhelming offense. And that is set as a lvl 50 AV!. I’ve always had to downgrade him to an EB to finish the arc. That said, he doesn’t hit hard enough to hurt PA!

Lusca about 2 mins per leg. 4 mins for the head. The sizing of the head makes receiving the buff from HL difficult so prepare for endurance issues toward the end of the fight. Jack and Eochia same time cause why not? I remembered these GM’s being much more fearsome. Eochai in 2 min, Jack in 2.5 min.

MoKhan I don’t know of any other build that has done this without at least Lore pets (I think some traps builds could do this as well). It took some thinking to say the least and I had to t4 a different hybrid for it. Basically his resistances are ridiculous, his HP is insane, plus he has unstoppable AND dull pain. Normally I use Assault Hybrid Radial for the double hit proc. But for him I leveled Assault Core to t4 so I could boost my (and PA’s) psi damage as that is his weakness. I think running musculature was maybe a mistake as opposed to agility. I had huge gaps in PA and benumb. My thought was to make them hit harder, but I don’t know if it netted me anything. I don’t plan to rerun this to get a faster time as it was a snoozefest. *I left the pc running for 20hrs+ after killing 3 of his friends. Didn't want to restart the mission, but had things to do. Sucks to have to let him heal up to 100% and chew through another ~170k hp to get back to where I was... but it is what it is. Still this took about 2hrs (maybe 1.5hrs if I didn't disengage), so not for the feint of heart. Phantasm is forever useless. As long as he summons his decoy I'm happy enough. You can get about 20-30 seconds out of Phant if you cast barrier, but usually Reich's fist of the heavens attack immediately kills him.

MoLRSF this has 19 AV’s, so it wasn’t like I was moving at a snails pace (about 4 min/AV if nothing else considered). The Future Phalanx needs more training haha. The /psi app eliminates Numina as being a threat. Vindicators sought what their name suggests, but ultimately let Ms. Liberty down. I didn’t realize she was special because Phantom Army and ample psi damage seem to be her counter. I have the tools to deal with the final encounter while not many other builds do. I confused Yin and Numina to encourage them to move closer to each other as Numina sometimes sits a bit too for Yin to focus on. Then I let Yin do her magic. When it was Yin, Babs and Manticore I was like “surprise it was ME all along!” They were dumbfounded to say the least. So much so that Yin continued to help me periodically, unsure which team she belonged to.

MoLGTF Clockwork King is more of a speed bump than an obstacle. He nukes early, so just be aware of that.The Riders can put out some mean debuffs and it can be dangerous to stand in melee range, but other than that they don’t present much challenge. Dra’gon is an underappreciated AV. He can put out a LOT of damage if you don’t pay attention. I mean Hami right? Sure it is a downgraded version, but it still feels pretty epic. It is mostly just waiting around for PA to do this with no insp. Phantom Army gets killed quickly and then don’t really engage, so you just use them to draw fire while you kill a cell. Same for phantasm. Just requires a lot of patience. I changed my hold slotting for the greens. Hro'Dtohz is easy and the Honoree is usually a roadblock given his high resistances, but he has no psi protection.

MoITF not really hard at base settings, but always fun. I’m by no means an aoe monster, so to complete this in a comparable time to my sav/shield stalker - pre hemo nerf (that is an aoe beast and did excellent st damage) is really a testament to how fast I can drop AV’s. I just surged the final fight. With my summons out I can pull well over the standard aggro cap. Fun mayhem ensued.

MoMarketCrash This TF is uneventful until Crimson. He is (imo) one of the more difficult AV’s in the game for most builds as he can counter most survival mechanisms. I don’t have any other character that can do Crimson Prototype with these conditions. Crimson Prototype CAN kill Phantom Army, which I was unaware of. Even though he can dispatch PA, the fact that they disperse his aggro meant he couldn’t stack a lot of debuffs. Just pay attention for when the forcefield generators spawn and watch your status bar for stacking debuffs. 31 min seems pretty quick to me, but I may look to pulling him somewhere so it chokes the skyskiffs. With everything bunched up I think it would go much faster. I’ve made an attempt at him as lvl 54, but couldn’t get enough focus fire to make an appreciable dent. I called it a stalemate after about 20mins.

I’ll be the first to admit that controllers don’t always feel great in the end game. Rolling nukes and super IO builds that need little support leave a traditionally low damage AT that specializes in creating safety out in the cold. But rather than lament those shortcomings, I embrace being left out in the cold. I prefer instead to ask, not what I bring to a team, but rather, what does a team bring to me? Grab a blanket and curl up by the fire because it is about to get cold Character: Frosticus Build 1: Illusion/Cold/Psi (survival build) Build 2: Illusion/Cold/Stone (damage build) Build 3: Illusion/Cold/Primal (retired generalist build seen in a few screens) (All the following are with NO insp/temps/lore/amplifiers) So far I have: MoAPEX MoMarketCrash MoITF MoLGTF MoLRSF MoKhan Some GM's/AV's (NO insp/temps/lore/amplifiers) -Sinclair lvl 54+3 -Mot lvl 54+3 -Lusca -Jack/Eochai -Council Goliath Warwalker (GM) -Kronos Class Titan (GM) -Lt. Sefu Tendaji lvl 54 -Siege lvl 54 (BAF version w/ rings of death) Kicking it off with: MoApex Got this on my first attempt. None of my other characters have made it to the final mission under these restictions. The Toxic snake pits can tear down builds in moments. Turns out they tear themselves apart pretty quickly too! Battlemaiden isn’t “that” hard for ranged characters (just shoot and move), the surge of adds causes my summons to lose focus slowing the fight down a fair amount. The previous mission with wave after wave of warwalkers always overwhelms my other characters. I found that it relieves enough pressure if I confused one of the warwalkers and then took on the rest during each wave.

When you savage leap (procs) then fast AS, then hit the big version of rending flurry from hide. Everything falls over and just the boss is left trying to run away with a sliver of health. It doesn't get old.

I've never really given DP a fair shake, but I am pretty familiar with Poison. I'd probably proc the attacks as much as I could as that seems to be one of the main selling points of DP. Use the P2W amplifier that gives mez protection and make sure you have the defender ATO procs in good powers so they go off frequently. The absorb and heal go a long way to keeping your rolling. Entomb proc in a hold is pretty great too. You shouldn't need aidself. I built my poison/fire for solid resistances, with low defense and made sure to build in good mez protection (rune, melee hybrid). It has had no issues taking down most AVs/GMs and quite a few TFs solo no insp/temps/lore.

If you are looking in game it is probably adding the damage for fiery embrace, or some portion of critical damage for the scrappers. Lots of the power displays are showing inaccurate numbers these days under total damage. For instance: Tank is actually 6 ticks of 14.26 = 85.5 damage

A solid combo if I do say so myself. This is the experience I had with plant/poison/stone. A really great controller. I'd quickly look toward turning your difficulty down, but increasing spawn size until you feel ready. I think I mostly played at -1/x5 no bosses with my plant/poison until I got a lot of the procs in place. It has never felt like a st destroyer though (enough to get it done late game), but the aoe is really good and the fun factor is very high.

Some controllers can deal out a lot of damage, especially over a sustained period. Burst damage isn't really their forte though. What is your combo?

proc'd out dark/bio

Just an update for the build in the OP. I haven't changed any of my slotting. You can still do good st damage as long as you follow AS with a snipe. Generally enough for taking out bosses. Upfront hemo crit might actually be beneficial for killing off luts. To a point anyway. +2 (+3 with alpha) feels good, but higher settings you are left with a lot of partial kills that the old heavy dot would finish. Finally, my sustained dps has tanked considerably. Down about 100dps vs pylons. I'm out of practice so you might be able to recover some of that deficit. Overall it is still a great AoE stalker (only with proc tho) and it is still probably a bit better off than elec for single target. That said, I'd probably play this combo as a scrap or tank . You'd have essentially the same aoe capability, scrap would still do similar st dps (less burst tho), but gain the taunt aura and toughness. Everyone can stealth missions if they choose to.

Here's a fun little solo challenge when your server is slow (no insp/temps/lore - I locked the first two with the task force options, which also gave me a nifty timer and I just don't enjoy lore pets. Clear all 20 pylons. I cleared them in 30 mins on my ill/cold/stone with 1 death which definitely threw off my timing and the rotation I was planning to defeat them in 😞 (dam drop ship!) That works out to 90 seconds per pylon including travel between and back from the hospital.

No particular feedback about the build, but I can say I actively avoid x/8 settings on my ill/cold. The aoe damage is too anemic, no aoe containment options and so much potential damage from PA is lost when they don't focus fire due to healback. I prefer +4/3, not because most enemies types are too challenging, but just for expedience purposes. Or just hunt AV's/GM's/solo TF's. That is illusion's forte imo. That said, consider slotting spectral terror for tohit debuff. Rad Infection plus spec terror (tohit debuff slotted) should get pretty close to flooring most +3's (considering alpha level shift at +4). Maybe the 2 defense pet IO's would help Phant? Other than that, he just dies. The power has been bugged for over a decade haha.

Traps. It gives you tools to solo most content with just SO's even many AV's. Fold space is a fantastic pairing for traps.

I run 90% slow/rech res on my /fa scrapper. You could likely get by with less if you run high defense, but keep in mind some of the things that pack a lot of -rech are going to be hard to defend against for /fa (like ranged psi attacks). Having your heal not cycling quickly is very frustrating.

The stalker sets with decent aoe still do good to excellent st damage. I have a few characters with limited aoe (basically just judgement) and there are times it can be tedious facing even a handful of enemies. That said, I play a lot more st specialists than aoe specialists.

@nihiliiis pretty much right on the money. His dps assessment between the two ATs is accurate. He's also correct about the value of a taunt aura. With my stalker I've had to chase so many AVs all over the map that it draws the fight out to incredible lengths. Some GMs that you "could" drop simply become a stalemate because they move around. It is to point that I picked up melee radial hybrid with the taunt aura as the bonus of assault hybrid is wasted while they flee. All things being equal (which they aren't quite), the taunt aura available to some scrappers lets them set the pace and control the engagement. The stalker, on the other hand is at the behest of whether or not the enemy wants to fight them. While I enjoy stalkers more than scrappers, the scrapper is better suited to the OPs goal

You shouldn't have endurance issues even with just the auto hit buff from HL. More aggressive/proc builds sometimes need to ensure they stand near a target to get 2 buffs from HL, but you should be fine just staying at range. Plus you have conserve power if things start to dip. Personally if I wasn't chasing a proc build (which is the direction I went with cold/fire/psi) I'd just look to softcap ranged def and then look to boosting resistances evenly as much as possible. I'd seek to put them all in a spot where melee core hybrid (with no targets in range) gets me close to res cap in as many areas as possible. With psi app you could potentially soft cap ranged and res cap s/l/e/f/c/p leaving just neg/toxic a bit short. If you went sorcery over flight you could fit in rune of protection as well. Cycle melee hybrid and rune for near full time mez protection and great resistances. The defender absorb proc in a frequently used attack is pretty clutch ime. Finally, I tend agree that procs aren't the be all and end all with fireblast; however, I'd still proc out inferno as much as possible on a team build. 3 +5 armageddon (dam/rech, acc/dam/rech, proc) and 3 more damage procs ensures going into the fray is worthwhile. Just preferences though. The build you posted looks super solid.

Not sure if I can get much further than this with my current approach. I only got 1 bomb planted. no insp/temp/lore (I used my temp self rez due to carelessness)

It is only impacted by the purple patch and any resistances the target has. Builds with lots of -damage can cripple most AV's and still take a lot of the wind out of their sails at +3. What out for resistance based god modes though!

Yah I recall that poll. Oh well, savage is still fun albeit probably with more downsides than upsides these days. I'd like the set to be a bit more unique in exchange for all the dot. Maybe the bleed could do a small maxhp debuff or something. The set has good to great aoe, depending how you slot it and savage leap gets you around the battle field in style. With old hemo I'd give the set an 8.5/10. With New hemo... 7/10 (6.99 of those points are for savage leap haha). But that is just my opinion