Guide to Controller Darkness/Thermal while Leveling with Teams

[DougGraves]

Guide to Controller Darkness/Thermal while Leveling with Teams

This guide covers the power for a darkness/thermal controller while leveling with teams.  How to use them, how useful they are, and how to slot them.  It completely ignores end game and IO sets.  It also mostly ignores soloing as soloing a controller while leveling is just painful.

Why play a darkness/thermal?  Thermal is mostly long duration buffs, so you can do your pre-buffing and then focus on a few powers in battle.  Darkness gives you a lot of different control types and options with some pets for damage.  Ultimately you can do almost everything in terms of control, buffing, and debuffing.

Why not play a darkness/thermal?  Thermal’s best abilities are ally only, not you so it is not good for soloing.  Darkness has a lot of different controls and damage but with long recharge times.  Keeping the thermal buffs up takes little time but does take paying attention.  And thermal gets its buffs early, but debuffs come late so facing EBs and AVs at lower levels it rougher.

Standard Fight

Pre-buff all of your allies with thermal and plasma shields.  Pre-buff allies without mezz protection with thaw if facing foes that mezz a lot.  Pre-buff your biggest damage dealers with forge.

You can soften up your foes with one Possess on an lt if it matters, which usually it will not.  You can also drop Shadow Field from around a corner to slightly reduce the alpha before someone else rushes in.

Fearsome Stare should be available every fight so use that as your opening control.  If your team needs protection use Dark Grasp and Possess on lts and heal with warmth and cauterize.  If your team needs damage and not protection use Melt Armor on the foes right away. 

 

Darkness Control

1 Shadowy Binds - Your single target damage.  It immobilizes which you don’t care about and reduces their chance to hit slightly.  Take after Dark Grasp, but you need it for damage.  Slot 1 accuracy, 3 damage.

1 Dark Grasp - Your basic single target hold plus damage.  Take this first.  Use this every time it is up.  Usually you target lts first as you can hold them with one use, then target bosses that require two uses to hold.  Slot 1 accuracy, 3 damage, 1 hold, 1 recharge.

2 Living Shadows - Cone immobilize, damage, and - to hit.  Good for damage if soloing.  Weak control, this is skippable if you team.  Slot 1 accuracy, 3 damage.

6 Possess - Single target confuse, no damage.  Causes the target to attack its allies instead of you.  Great control for one target.  Use this on an lt.  Since it does not cause aggro, you can use it before your team attacks to soften up the foes slightly.  Slot 1 accuracy, 1 recharge.

8 Fearsome Stare - Cone fear.  Recharge is 40 seconds, duration is 28 seconds.  So slot for recharge not duration.  Can be up almost every fight, your primary AoE control.  If you solo and use Dark Grasp and Possess you may skip this.  If you team you want this. Slot 1 accuracy, 2 recharge (a third recharge will only save a few seconds on recharge).

12 Heart of Darkness - PBAoE Stun.  90 second recharge and 19 second duration.  Slot for recharge over duration but this still will not be up every fight, so use as a panic button.  Always remember that this is a pbaoe, so you have to be in the middle of your foes to use this.  1 accuracy, 3 recharge, 2 stun.

18 Summon Shades - Summons 2 pets that attack your target and taunt it.  Recharge is 210 seconds.  You need to slot for accuracy and damage, so recharge will be long.  Great solo for extra damage against the occasional boss.  Slot 1 accuracy, 2 damage, 3 recharge.

26 Shadow Field - Duration AoE that gives -to hit and chance to hold on enemies in it.  The chance to hold is very low but triggers every few seconds so it will happen sometimes but not reliably.  Long recharge of 240 seconds.  Duration is 45 seconds, so useful for defending areas in missions.  Make sure you drop it where you are fighting so foes stay in it as its effect is over time not at activation.  Activation is 3 seconds, so a bit harder to use as a panic button.  This is ranged which Heart of Darkness is not, so may be more survivable.  Slot 1 accuracy, 3 recharge.

32 Umbra Beast - Summons a pet that attacks.  Long recharge of 240 seconds.  Provides damage against bosses.  Slot 1 accuracy, 2 damage, 3 recharge.

 

Thermal Radiation

1 Warmth -  Heals you and allies near you.  Slot 3 Healing.

2 Thermal Shield -  Gives your allies (but not you) resistance to smashing, lethal, fire, and cold damage for 4 minutes.  Buffs multiple allies at the same time if they are near each other.  Does not stack with itself, but keep this up on your allies at all times.  Slot 3 Resist Damage.

4 Cauterize -  Heals one ally at range.  Heals twice as much as warmth but only one ally and not you.  Slot 3 Healing.

10 Plasma Shield -  Gives your allies (but not you) resistance to fire (again), energy, and negative damage for 4 minutes.  Buffs multiple allies at the same time if they are near each other.  Does not stack with itself, but keep this up on your allies at all times.  Slot 3 Resist Damage.

16 Power of the Phoenix -  Rezzes one ally while damaging and disorienting nearby foes.  Great to use when an ally is defeated.  Not worth investing in unless you find your allies get defeated often.  Slot 1 Recharge Reduction.

20 Thaw - Gives an ally (not you) resistance to most mezz effects for 90 seconds.  Keep this up on allies that do not have their own mezz resistance when facing foes that mezz.  It only buffs one ally at a time so it is a pain to keep up.  Slot 1 Resist Damage.

28 Forge -   Give an ally (not you) a boost to damage and to hit for 2 minutes.  Recharge is 60 seconds so you can have this on multiple allies at the same time (it does not stack with itself).  Keep this up on damage dealers at least, and everyone if you can.  Slot 3 Recharge Reduction.

35 Heat Exhaustion -  Gives one foe -Dmg, -End, -Rec, -Regen for 40 seconds, with a recharge of 120 seconds.  It has a big effect but is only worth casting on bosses or higher.  Slot 1 Accuracy, 3 Recharge Reduction.

38 Melt Armor -  Gives a group of foes -Def and -Res for 40 seconds with a recharge of 150 seconds.  Use this on enemy groups when it is up at the start of a fight.  Do not waste it on stragglers at the end of a fight.  Slot 1 Accuracy, 3 Recharge Reduction.