So, what's your favorite combo yet?

[Crowcus Pocus]

I'm at that point where I spend hours (days) thinking of what my next toon will be.

 

I absolutely love controllers - it's probably my favorite AT on par with Tankers. So I was wondering if you could share your favorite combo so far and what do you love about it.

 

Mine might be Earth/Storm and the classic Fire/Rad (especially miss the fun I had on superteams), both played on retail

 

Now, entertain me.

 

Edited November 6, 2019 by Falsey
Typo

[Siderous]

Gravity/dark.  Love the damage output, singularity is a beast, wormhole tricks are a blast, all while debuffing mobs and buffing and healing mates.  Solo is pretty fun too..

[Coyote]

Dark/Dark, or Illusion/Storm.

[Gregg247]

My Main from Live was an Earth/Storm (still one of my favorites).   Right now, I'm really enjoying my new Gravity/FF and my Dark/Cold.

[Doomguide2005]

As far as controllers go mine was Earth/Storm (do I see a pattern here!), had one on two different servers sitting at 50 back before server switching was easy if even possible.

[mcdoogss]

Plant/Storm is a blast, with very respectable damage for a controller.  

[Mercurias]

Grav/Time is really fun. You have enough offensive potential to hold your own solo, but you’re buffs and controls make you an awesome addition to teams. It’s my “Everybody loves me” character and still currently my main.

 

Dark/Dark is a Control/Debuff/Support Swiss Army knife of goodness. Its a little light on damage, but if you don’t mind the wait then you can solo anything short of an AV.

 

Elec/Time is fun for me, currently. It’s extremely safe and control-heavy rather than damage-heavy. Between Static Field, Time’s Junture, Distortion Field, and Conductive Aura I’m basically two patch power drops from being untouchable in melee. After that, I use a Procc’d up Jolting Chain and watch enemies flop around until dead.

 

Plants/Storm seems like it would be utter carnage. I keep meaning to try that.

[Coyote]

22 minutes ago, Mercurias said:

you can solo anything short of an AV.

 

You can solo anything short of a GM, maybe, and probably even that with the Envenomed Dagger ;). /Dark is about as good against AVs as /Rad once you get Fluffy.

[Broken_Prey]

For the longest time it was my fire/kin, while I still love playing even more now because of KB proc in bonfire, I'm loving my Ill/TA. 

 

TA is a very active set while it's not the best it is fun to play and ill is awesome, got to love PA. 

[TrishaTwilight]

Mind/Storm - chaotic and fun

Illusion/traps - I have soloed monsters on the islands off PI (With incarnate stuff)

Mind/TA - Synergistic in a different way

 

Love Mind mostly.

[roleki]

I loved my Fire/FF on Live so much that a Fire/FF was the first thing I rolled when I found out about HC.  Now that I have him properly equipped, I find I am loving Fire/FF even more in i25 

 

Dude's a little steamroller, knocking mobs down just as they are swarmed by near-immortal Fire Imps, then wading into the midst of the chaos and melting all the faces.  As far as attack sequences go, it's one of the most satisfying click->result chains in the game. 

 

As far as buffs/debuffs go... the various stuns, knockX, -ToHit, and +Def effects combine to form a nice little survivability package, with the added bonus of only having to look for flashing bubbles every ~4 minutes.  Bottom line is, by not having to spam out of my secondary, I have more time/endurance to knock things down and go melt their faces.  So I do.

 

Viva Fire/FF!

[DougGraves]

Electric/Dark.  Static Field is amazing control up every combat.  Jolting Chain is good control but mostly just fun.  And /dark heal, -regen, a great rez, stealth.

 

Basically electric/dark gives you everything except damage.

[Mortal prey]

Back on live my main was a Mind/Emp loved that alt. Slowly leveling that up again. Also enjoyed both my grav/ff and ill/rad. My mind/sonic was fun to play as well. 

[Corythia]

I have to say Earth/Storm is my favorite as well.

 

I am enjoying Earth/TA, Fire/Dark, and Plant/Storm as well..

 

I have a Grav/Time controller that was ok at lower levels, but I find it has a really tough time against groups that spread out at all.

 

I thought Ice/Storm would be strong, but anything that resists cold will wreck it, it doesn't have a second string to it's bow.

 

I think that's it for now.  I want to try Electric/something, but I'm having trouble deciding on the secondary.

 

 

[Crowcus Pocus]

3 minutes ago, Corythia said:

I have to say Earth/Storm is my favorite as well.

 

I am enjoying Earth/TA, Fire/Dark, and Plant/Storm as well..

 

I have a Grav/Time controller that was ok at lower levels, but I find it has a really tough time against groups that spread out at all.

 

I thought Ice/Storm would be strong, but anything that resists cold will wreck it, it doesn't have a second string to it's bow.

 

I think that's it for now.  I want to try Electric/something, but I'm having trouble deciding on the secondary.

 

 

Earth/Stormies ftw! I'm also leveling a Earth/TA. It's good fun!

As for the electric, I was thinking of playing it as a Dominator instead. We'll see.

[Demon Shell]

Mine is Electric/Force/Earth.

 

I remember it was slow leveling on Live until around the 40s, but it's much easier now with a proc upped Jolting Chain.

 

Gremlins are still a blessing and a curse, though. If they both KB the same enemy at the same time (or on the same tick as one of my chain jumps), it tosses them away. It hasn't got me killed since remaking the character yet, but I can feel it coming.

[EmperorSteele]

Mind/Kin for me. It's not the BEST combo, it certainly has its shortcomings, but there's something I like about having a tool for every situation. An enemy has high defenses? Doesn't matter, Mind powers bypass defense (Awesome for Hami raids, FYI!)! Teammate doesn't have a travel power? Speed Boost and Inertial Reduction, at your service! Team is biting off more AVs than they can chew? Mesmerize will take one out of the fight so long as no one hits it. Need to keep foes away? TK and Repel, good to go! A crapton of ambushes all at once? Sure, Most controllers can put out an AoE immob, but that's not gonna stop them from shooting you. Mind can put them to sleep, make them too scared to engage, or confuse them (in addition to the AoE hold everyone has).  Some sets can do one of these better (Elec has a better sleep, Plant has the better confuse, etc), but it's nice having all these AoE options on one toon. Plus, unlike most Controller primaries, it has a legit attack chain in its first few abilities that doesn't rely on DoTs or a wimpy immob that doesn't do much to protect you (Gravity is the only set that's superior in this regard, afaik).

THAT said, yeah, it's AOE controls are pretty soft, It's T9 was already derided even before Plant came along with Seeds of Confusion. And while all of its powers can be useful, powers like Repel/TK/ IR are too situational to take a valuable slot on your main build. Mind doesn't offer any debuffs, and Kin is actually a bit light on them, as well (Many of its powers do have a debuff component, but they're actually fairly minor in comparison). With several long-recharge powers, you can't not take Hasten, and I feel like Weaken Resolve from the Force of Will set is another "Must have", as well, since it does everything Kin doesn't.

So, yeah, it's a good combo which can do some nifty things, but those situations are a bit rare, relegating you to a light blaster for most content.

[RothenOrderCOH]

I have been playing both Plant / Dark and Ice/Storm. Ice/Storm was my main on live. I rebuilt him and have enjoyed his play, but lately, I have really been enjoying Plant/Dark. I get a lot of control and can debuff like a crazy man.

[The_Cheeseman]

Another vote for Plant/Storm, super fun and crazy damage. Very chaotic, and you can't be afraid to die, but it's SO much fun to play!

[Display Name]

Did someone say Gravity Control/Time Manipulation/Primal Forces Mastery?

 

I used the proc-monster build and WOW!

[MTeague]

Mind/Kin for me.  In addition to @EmperorSteele's excellent post above, the combo has several points additional strengths that make it perfect for me.

• a Non-Aggroing Confuse.  I see so many players who still can't get past a slight loss of XP-per-kill when you can get much better and safer XP-per-time with Confuse.   And the fact that the cast causes no aggro means you never have to start a fight wtih boss aggro if you don't want to.  Two casts of Confuse and the boss is your unwilling ally and you can KEEP him confused for free hits for basically forever.  You do need to be aware of certain mobs that have extremely high resistance / protection to confuse (looking at you, Nemesis and Arachnos Huntsman...), but they are definitely the exception.
• Repel, a power I once considered only good for funsies, can contribute quite a bit of emergency ragdoll defense if you slot it with a KB to KD enhancer.  Despite the name "Repel", this power has no actual Repel effect. It's just a PBAE Knockback aura. Which you can shazam into a KnockDOWN aura with just it's default slot.  And once you get Transference, the end cost is greatly mitigated.
• Telekneisis can be very useful levelling up, as an extra guaranteed source of Hold Magnitude.  Later on that becomes less important, as you get the Lockdown Chance for +2 Mag Hold IO's, and once you can chain Mass Dominate with Dominate.  I eventually respec'd out of it, but it did save my and my team's bacon levelling a few times.
• Allll the kin buffs. 
  • Siphon Power, i eventually respec out of because Fulcrum Shift, though if you're maintain an Exemplar / Flashback build, Siphon power totally deserves a spot.
  • Siphon Speed, very easy to stack twice.  Doable to get a third stack with Hasten.  This lets you CRAP out the Hold Magnitudes or Confuse Magnitudes.  You're not a Perma-Dom Dominator... but you can shut down the big bads all the same. 
  • Increase Density is *very* easily overlooked among Speed Boost and Fulcrum Shift, but while it may not be flashy, granting every squishy on your team Hold, Stun, and Knockback protection for the entire duration of the team, is quite nice. 
  • Speed Boost, Fulcrum Shift, no writeup necessary.

[DougGraves]

At this point I basically only play /dark.  I like /rad but /dark basically does everything from debuff, heal, control with your rezz power, and stealth.

 

My top 3 combos are electric/dark, ice/dark, and earth/dark.  They all get good control every fight at level 22 or whenever you slot enhancements.  And all 3 can drop a control power from around a corner so you can avoid the alpha.  I basically don't play about level 32 and I only team.  So good aoe control at lower levels is what I look for.

[ExeErdna]

From everything I've played I want to try Mind/Kin yet the most impressive for me is Plant/Time.  Both are just really safe, powerful and are good no matter the level. I haven't made the character yet from playing my Plant/Poison and my Ice/Time. I'm like yeah Plant/Time is controller I can take to 50+

[Sir Myshkin]

I gotta put another vote in for Fire/FF. Wasn't my first toon, but it was definitely one of first. I remember being in the Hollows and seeing a FF Defender hanging out near the Igneous spawns, 'giant' bubble swarming around and I was like "Man, I need a graphic power like that, it's so cool!" Talked to a few folks, got pushed towards Controllers as it was "more challenging" an rolled Fire because the Imps sounded like the most fun choice. Slowly the character evolved into my most played toon of all time, logging several thousand hours between RP and base building and general teaming. The game also took a lot longer to hit 50 back then too (pre i9).

 

I actually struggled with the idea of re-rolling that character here on HC before coming to terms with the idea that, at the very least, I wanted it there in memoriam, if nothing else. Now he lives inside the base builder (whenever I get back around to THAT project... started building a Cathedral. Silly idea, takes so long).

 

As far as toons I actually played freely since back on HC, probably Dark/Sonic. It's just such a beautiful visual combo.

[Lost Ninja]

I used to love Fire/Kin.

I used to love Fire/Rad.

I used to love Mind/Rad.

I used to love Mind/Kin.

I currently love Grav/Rad.

 

But that will change as I try different things out, my 1st 50s on HC were Fire/Rad but apart from being my Bank character and main crafter I seldom even log in on them now. (They're mostly T3 and I have 3 of them (multi-boxing).)

 

My current project which I'm enjoying immensely is a trio of Grav/Rad gobbling their way through content and are heading toward 40 ATM, I'm probably going to start soloing with them to get through the 40s (or AE them up to 47, dislike content in the 38-47/48 range, you're so close to the end but not quite there), And when I've had my fill of them I'm looking at either a /Storm trio or /Dark trio. Not sure on the primary but sort of edging towards Plant or Dark at the moment. Played all the others and either don't like them (Ill), didn't enjoy them as much as I'd have thought (Ice, better as a blaster & electric) or don't like some of the powers (Earth). (Not saying that any of these are bad, just that I don't like/enjoy them.)