Starting my first controller in years, questions.

[Deathevn]

Hello Controller experts,

 

I have been considering making a controller for awhile. For a bit of background I have not had one since live. In the back of my head controllers scream groups only with the exception of Fire/Kin. So I am working with old info. I play about 50% solo and 50% groups and would like some input. I understanding the secondaries well enough, its the primaries I am concerned about. Right now I am leaning Darkness and Grav ( likely to be paired with /storm or /Dark ) What reading I have done suggests that Gravity may end up being my best option to kind of bridge the gap here.

 

What I am getting at I guess is any input on Grav/ vs Dark/ and how they would pair up in both a solo or team environment?  I know storm enough to know how to behave with things like hurricane.

Any input would be appreciated!

 

Thanks.

[biostem]

Personally, I find gravity extremely easy and satisfying to use, but it is a fairly early blooming set, (except for wormhole and singularity, which come later).  You can trigger containment easily, and it's a fairly trivial matter to get a good attack chain going.  Darkness takes a little longer to come into its own, but you do get a confuse and lots of softer controls a la tohit debuffs and fear.  Dark gets a pair of temporary pets pretty early on, and they're nice to have, (though not immensely damaging IMO).

[Doc Ranger]

Dark/Dark has been my favorite combo since rejoining the game. You can be effective in the middle of the crowd or from a distance. Once you get a few levels under your belt the aoe debuffs keep you safe from getting hit. 
 

There are so many great sets but the amount of serious control you have along with keeping any group safe just makes it my favorite set.

[Coyote]

Dark is stronger defensively, Gravity is stronger offensively in single-target damage. I'm pretty sure that Dark can manage more AoE damage on its own (Living Shadows is a decent AoE Immob for procs, and Heart of Darkness can be a PBAoE attack with the right slotting), but Gravity can position opponents for AoE damage. So Gravity works better if you're taking an AoE-capable secondary like Storm or Traps. If you're not, I think Dark is overall better.

 

Dark/Dark is an awesome combo, amazingly strong defensively. Offensively it's not great, but it's still pretty good for a Controller.

Gravity/Storm is an excellent offensive combo for a Controller. Defensively it alternates between very good and not so great, since you don't have a good secondary control option after Wormhole, and Storm handles adds and ambushes well when they're with melee-oriented mobs, and poorly when it's ranged mobs that are being added. Perhaps you can leverage Dimension Shift for a kind of anti-range force field and fight inside it when ambushes come, so you can have protection against ranged adds.

[blazingcoconut]

Plant is a good contender for strong soloing.  Fire, even without Kin is good now that bonfire can be a damaging knockdown field.

 

Teams are fine until your late 40s where you may start wondering about your role in the group.

[ambpup]

If you're comfortable with Dark, I would go Dark/Dark since you're not going to be disappointed even at the higher levels. Back during Live, I use to farm a Knives of Artemis mission with my Dark/Dark at +4 with little trouble. It wasn't super fast, but it was fun and I always enjoyed myself. She was also my preferred hero for the Summer Blockbuster Double Feature. 

 

But if you're truly a madman wishing a challenge , you could go fire/storm which can aggro a whole room without even trying.  Not to say I didn't have fun with her, but you always had to be on the top of your game with the high endurance drain of that combo.  But solo or in a group, she was utter madness with what she could do in melding mobs.

 

Which kinda relation to what blazingcoconut was talking about, you really do need to have a eye for what you can do pass 40's. My dark/dark and fire/storm, I did alot of solo stuff  during those levels and never looked back. My ice/kin troller on the other hand, which being total fun at the lower levels (and likely the safest hero I played at those lvls) was kinda useless once I got her to 50th. Mostly I used her to solo Saving Baby New Year mission and that was about it. Same with another one of my controllers, I just tasked her to do Rikti Mothership raids because she just didn't shine anymore pass 40th lvl.

[Erydanus]

My favorite controllers are Grav/Rad and Dark/Dark. And I almost rolled a Grav/Dark yesterday after singing it's praises in another post, but I made my saving roll vs. altitis. I agree they are 2 of the best options for soloing and of course also good if you team. Here are some thoughts:

 

Dark does less damage but has more soft control more quickly. Fearsome stare will pretty much completely shut down a large group allowing you to whittle down the members. The confuse is very powerful soloing too. However the problem is that after you've controlled your foes you're going to be chipping away at them for a long time. The 2 temporary pets are really helpful but if you're soloing it will get painful. Remember that there are scaling effects as you level. You can easily solo the early levels with the damage in your controller primaries - I soloed that annoying Skull EB around level 10 on a Dark/Dark Controller mostly because Darkest Night neutered his damage output - but the more levels you get the weaker your damage feels. Arcane Bolt from Sorcery was extremely helpful, and if I hadn't started teaming I would probably have resorted to Air Superiority as yet another attack just to get to 32 and the pet.  From 18-32 was really painful and teaming helped a lot. If you do go pure solo expect to take several attacks and basically just fear everything, hold the most dangerous guy, and have to wade in and punch. Dark control probably works best with a secondary that either provides damage or ups your damage, or has really good self-buffs and heals, though that's not as essential when you get your pet at 32. I think some of the secondaries that would work best with it for soloing are Dark Affinity, Storm, and Traps; I think that Nature Affinity and Time would also be ok but are more team friendly and Nature is pretty defensive especially at low levels.   I think Sonic would be interesting but a late bloomer, it'd be hideous once you have pets but a struggle to get there. Imagine hanging Disruption Field on your Haunts (which won't be perma when you get them unfortunately).

 

Gravity does much more damage but lacks soft controls that make soloing trickier and more about small groups. Not only does it have 2 direct attacks - lift and propel - they have a special mechanism that grants a 2nd bonus damage effect on top of containment called impact. The mechanism is simple, things still affected by Gravity Distortion (its movement slow lingers after its hold wears off) get another damage packet. The upshot is 50% extra containment, so do 10 damage to something held, get 10+5 containment and impact damage also. Propel also now has a small AoE knockdown effect. I found when I shot a dude with an object I often saw the 2 guys next to him flop to the ground. That was helpful mitigation. Gravity is really weak for AoE soft controls, though, so you're going to have to tackle small groups and cycle Gravity Distortion around. In the teens you get Phase Shift which is pretty useless soloing. The way it works now you can go into its AoE to fight the phased mobs, but as a soloing controller that's not helpful (though it's fine for a team) as you need something that will shut down 3-4 guys while you pick on 1. So you need to choose a secondary that will give you the soft control you're lacking, or else really good debuffs to up your damage. That's why I typically pick /rad, once you've dropped the anchors on foes they're so weak they might as well be held.  Similarly Dark Affinity is great because Darkest Night is a huge damage debuff and will improve your survivability and hell Howling Twilight is a kickass AoE stun/-Regen. Tar Patch ups your damage, Shadow Fall and Fade directly buff you and Soul Absorption? SO OP.  So secondaries that would pair very well with Gravity include Radiation, Dark Affinity; Storm and Traps would be a notch less effective but viable in my opinion, with again Time and Nature Affinity workable but more team friendly.

 

So in conclusion my main suggestions are: Grav/Rad, Grav/Dark, and Dark/Dark. I actually wouldn't rec Dark/Rad for soloing though it would be hell on earth if you had a team to do the damage.