AV/GM killer

[Xandyr]

What is considered the best AV/GM killler (solo) now? Used to be fire/rad. Is it still top dog, or is Ill/Rad or Ill/Cold better?

[Extor Prime]

Ill/Cold is best without a doubt.

[Coyote]

Ill/Cold at the top end, probably. Though frankly, Traps does great also.

Ill/Storm is good and better against non-AVs.

Earth/Cold does pretty well cheaply.

And if you like Fire, I'd very much suggest Fire/Dark over Fire/Rad. The extra defensive abilities more than make up for the small loss in average -Regen debuffing, and you put out more -Res.

Edited December 29, 2019 by Coyote

[AWOL]

Sorry to hijack the thread a little but I have a very similar question which is what is best for helping Teams/leagues melt AVs? Is it still Ill/Cold.  I have never played a controller but have a desire to create a team assisting buff/debuffer and wondering if I should create another defender e.g. Storm/Sonic or Thermal/Sonic or if controllers are a good option.  Excuse my massive ignorance.

[Doc Ranger]

I have a Fire/Dark and I don’t think there is any way in hell that it could solo AV/GM. Help teams? Yes. Solo? No. 

[Doomguide2005]

I think Illusion is generally a better choice when considering solo vs team play and in general defenders offer stronger buffs and debuffs when compared to controllers.  However, pretty much ANY controller or defender can be built to take on AV's and help teams.  Some just do it more easily.   My own top choices would be a RadEm/Sonic or Cold/Sonic defender.  The Cold is probably a stronger AV killer but for Incarnate content the shields are less useful.

[Coyote]

11 hours ago, Ice_Warden said:

I have a Fire/Dark and I don’t think there is any way in hell that it could solo AV/GM. Help teams? Yes. Solo? No. 

 

I'm sure it's doable, as I've done it on a Dark/Dark while leveling. Fire/Dark should put out more damage (though not that much more for single-target). But once you get Dark Servant, defense isn't much of an issue, and between Twilight Grasp and Howling Twilight, there is enough -Regen that it should be quite possible to solo them.

 

Defensively, the trick is that -Resist improves your -Damage. I took Weaken Resolve and put an Achilles Heel into it... with stacked Tar Patches and Weaken Resolve I expect at least 40% or so -Resist, but usually more like 60%. On higher level AVs that probably drops to 40%, but that still multiplies the damage debuffing by 1.4. You put out 30 from Darkest Night and another 30 or so from stacked Twilight Grasp, and Dark Servant puts out 30 from its Darkest Night and close to 20 from its Twilight Grasps. That's 110% -Damage... multiplied by 1.4, you're over -150%. Even a +3 AV is at the damage floor, and you're spamming heals (which happen to stack -Regen also). There is no way that any AV can hammer damage through that debuff and healing, not even counting all the -ToHit and base Defense. Carry Break-frees or use Clarion, and mezzing isn't an issue. So... incoming damage isn't an issue and mezzing isn't an issue, and between about 5 stacks of Twilight Grasp and about a 50% uptime on Howling Twilight, there is enough -Regen that even a low level of damage should be able to drop its health bar. And if you build for damage, you should be able to output more than a low level of damage. I think the Imps alone put out about 63 DPS base, before the -Resist (on even-level AVs, though... only about 40 DPS on +4s with a level shift).

 

So... numbers look pretty solid for soloing AVs with an kind of /Dark Controller except maybe Mind (because you're using a lot of animation time, so getting "free" damage from your pets is big). And I think the top 3 should be Illusion, Dark, and Fire... maybe Grav, but you're having animation time issues with that.

[Menelruin]

How exactly does Illusion kill GMs and AVs?  I thought the damage from PA went away if you didn't kill fast enough?  What is your main source of damage?

[Doomguide2005]

Only part of illusions damage goes away.  The debuffs of the secondary plus the safety of having indestructible pets to take and hold the aggro more than make up for the loss of that damage.  It's in part why perma PA is so important.  Aggro shifts rapidly back to the controller when the pets despawn, not just the loss of damage output from the pets.  It's also why illusion/Rad has been an AV killer long before sets became a thing.

Edited January 6, 2020 by Doomguide2005
Added stuff

[Call Me Awesome]

1 hour ago, Menelruin said:

How exactly does Illusion kill GMs and AVs?  I thought the damage from PA went away if you didn't kill fast enough?  What is your main source of damage?

Only part of the damage of Spectral Wounds heals back a few seconds later, all other damage is permanent.  Unless it's changed since Live anyway, I haven't played Illusion on Homecoming.

[Coyote]

Both Spectral Wounds and PA only lose part of their damage as a heal-back, and for both powers, the heal-back is a fixed amount, while the damage of the power can be increased through slotting, making the healback less as a percentage of the damage done as you enhance the power (and as you get Damage boosting).

The secondary for AV killers is also usually picked to have either hefty -Regen (Traps, Cold, Dark, Thermal, Rad) or a lot of damage (Storm).

[Krazie Ivan]

rebuilt my ill/Rad/Mace for solo'g AVs/GMs only to find the Phant & Tarantula constantly running under the heels of the target to fire their ranged-only attacks, to be squashed instantly. i don't remember what issue had that crap AI change, but it was right about the same time i'd finished slotting-up the char ... did it ever get fixed? was a great char otherwise ...230% Rech + Spiritual, nasty 130-160% -Res depending on procs, dual BU & several dmg procs, Energy Fonts, BP Lore & Support Hybrid & Degen, etc... but i only brought it out on teams with shield buffs after that. real bummer, that one.

[Coyote]

Yeah, I'm having the same problem. It's a bit ameliorated by summoning PA on the opposite side... that way, smaller blasts and cones won't always hit Phantasm and Spidey. So they last a bit longer. Spidey lasts about 2-3 minutes instead of 4, which makes it worth summoning. Phantasm lasts long enough to summon a decoy, blast twice, then run in... get blasted down to 20%, then 10 second later get blasted. It has about the same lifespan as the decoy :(.

[Extor Prime]

Hopefully soon the Phantasm will get a brain transplant and won't run in anymore. 

[Elmyder]

Ill/cold may be better than ill/rad, but I'm not convinced it's a clear win. The main benefit of cold over rad is that it deals more -res. But on the flip side:

 

1. Rad gives 30% recharge from AM. Not only does AM give a damage buff (which helps bridge the -res gap a bit), but cold will need to make up that recharge difference with bonuses, potentially at the cost of other important things.

 

2. Lingering radiation and benumb deal the same -regen for the same duration, but lingering radiation recharges faster. Lingering radiation does stack, so you gain greater effective dps, which scales up greatly for higher regen targets.

 

Regardless, both ill/rad and ill/cold perform extremely well at soloing avs/monsters.

As a point of reference, my ill/rad can take down a devouring earth monster in about 3 mins with good rng. Using incarnates but no lores. (That's over 700 effective dps, factoring in -regen.)

[StormyWeathers]

I am running an ill/storm and am able to assist in both teams and running with only 1 other at +4 x6, but anything higher than that, not so much.  What I cannot do is run solo against AV's/GM's.  What am I missing?  

[oedipus_tex]

One thing about Cold Domination is that in the meta where it first appeared it was better comparatively than it is currently.

 

Cold Domination came to Controllers a couple of issues before inherent Fitness pool became a thing. In that meta, most builds were forced to take 3 powers in order to stabilize their endurance consumption. Remember, this was also prior to alpha slots. So the only way you could run a high end build back then was to spend a slot on Leaping, Health, and Stamina.

 

Cold Domination, because of Heat Loss, was one of the few sets that could bend this rule. With enough recharge, Heat Loss offers nearly bottomless endurance even without Stamina. So, Cold Domination was viewed very favorably, because with that set you got 3 "bonus" power selections other sets couldn't take. This, stacked with Cold's +3.5 (+5 on Defenders) defense from Arctic Fog made it a top tier set, because it could take Defense powers like Weave, Combat Jumping, or Hover other sets couldn't without significant sacrifices. Back then, even if Radiation could have found the slots, they wouldn't have had the endurance.

 

With the addition of inherent Stamina, Cold Dom is still good. These days it means getting away without putting extra slots in Stamina, and getting to pick a Alpha and Destiny choice that doesn't assist endurance, because you're covered there. But the glory days of when Cold was one of the few sets that could function at 50 without worrying about the blue bar are over. That, to me, makes the missing heal in Cold Domination much more noticeable. These days I'd rank it dead even with Radiation as a set.

 

It's still good at AV killing of course. 

Edited January 12, 2020 by oedipus_tex

[Coyote]

1 hour ago, StormyWeathers said:

I am running an ill/storm and am able to assist in both teams and running with only 1 other at +4 x6, but anything higher than that, not so much.  What I cannot do is run solo against AV's/GM's.  What am I missing?  

 

What's the issue, lack of damage, lack of surviving, or lack of endurance?

PA should be perma, which means you only have to survive usually 1 shot from the AV when the new set of decoys comes in, before they grab aggro, and you can often even avoid that by ducking behind an obstacle before the summons. And I try to make sure that I have either 1 Luck or Unleash Potential running, to be capped vs Ranged Defense so it would take a lucky shot to hit... and very few AVs will 1-shot you at range.

You should be able to perma PA easily once Incarnate using Agility as the Alpha (and Ageless if necessary, though it's more necessary for Endurance management), but you can probably get perma-PA before it, by putting a Force Feedback +Recharge in Tornado and in Lightning Storm. Each use of one in a minute is equivalent to a 7.5% Recharge bonus, and you can usually fire Tornado 3x and LS 2x in a minute, so that's a lot of Recharge boosting, more even than Accelerate Metabolism.

Edited January 12, 2020 by Coyote

[StormyWeathers]

On 1/12/2020 at 5:08 PM, Coyote said:

 

What's the issue, lack of damage, lack of surviving, or lack of endurance?

PA should be perma, which means you only have to survive usually 1 shot from the AV when the new set of decoys comes in, before they grab aggro, and you can often even avoid that by ducking behind an obstacle before the summons. And I try to make sure that I have either 1 Luck or Unleash Potential running, to be capped vs Ranged Defense so it would take a lucky shot to hit... and very few AVs will 1-shot you at range.

You should be able to perma PA easily once Incarnate using Agility as the Alpha (and Ageless if necessary, though it's more necessary for Endurance management), but you can probably get perma-PA before it, by putting a Force Feedback +Recharge in Tornado and in Lightning Storm. Each use of one in a minute is equivalent to a 7.5% Recharge bonus, and you can usually fire Tornado 3x and LS 2x in a minute, so that's a lot of Recharge boosting, more even than Accelerate Metabolism.

In a solo stance against AV/GM strictly survivability.  End isn't an issue, however dam is.

 

I was asked to tell you Coyote that you baffled my son, who happened  to do my build for me and that you are an absolute genius!!!  LOL.  It was "strongly" suggested by someone else (not my son) to put Endurance Mod in LS to assist in taking endurance away from bosses/AV/GM while preserving my own.  My son is now chuckling while face-palming at the same time...lol.  We'll be doing a respec on the illusion/storm and see how much more of a bad a$$ she can become 😄 

Here is an attachment of my build my son did up based off of Force Feedback, already made the changes, is there anything you would change about this build?? My son runs a Beast Mastery/Time Manipulation MM where if it's him and myself together on a team we don't die and we can hold our own against an AV and we slowly beat it up. I've attached his build to this thread for input as well. Clearly there is something both him and I are not understanding here, any and all input would be fantastic in this situation.

 

Thanks for the feedback and suggestions. 

 

**NOTE** Stormy WeatherMaker Final 2 is the build my son did up for me and Mr. Know It All is my son's build he did up for his MM (needs the latest Mid's Hero Designer to open these)

 

 

Mr_Know_It_All_-_Mastermind_Beast_Mastery.mxd Stormy_WeatherMaker_Final_2_-_Controller_Illusion_Control.mxd

Edited January 14, 2020 by StormyWeathers

[Coyote]

Okay, I don't have time tonight to go over this build, so I'll go over it tomorrow. Just as a note, the only reason to 6-slot a set, EVER, is if the bonuses for the 6th slot are good. Otherwise, it's almost always better to throw out 1 or 2 of the set's worst IOs, and replace with an IO from another set that has an effect proc, or that enhances the better aspects of a power.

 

For a quick note tonight, this is my Ill/Storm build, which has the perma-PA to stand against AVs, and DPS to beat their regen. Endurance IS a problem, and I'm switching from Clarion to Ageless due to that:

 

Spoiler

http://www.cohplanner.com/mids/download.php?uc=1556&c=728&a=1456&f=HEX&dc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

 

Edit: and as a side note, I wonder if that suggestion was a joke. Lightning Storm COULD be used for draining, but really only for an Electric/Storm, and even then it's not worth it: Damage, Accuracy, Recharge, and Endurance Reduction are the main things to slot in there, and a Force Feedback. I go with 5xApocalypse and the Force Feedback, personally, but there are other decent options.

Edited January 14, 2020 by Coyote

[VV]

On 12/28/2019 at 7:49 PM, Coyote said:

Earth/Cold does pretty well cheaply.

This sounds like a fun combo, but wouldn't the damage be especially low?

[Coyote]

6 hours ago, VV said:

This sounds like a fun combo, but wouldn't the damage be especially low?

 

Single-target damage is fine. You get Infrigidate slotted with 3 damage procs and Achilles... you get 5 or even 6 damage procs in Fossilize (because Earth does -Def with everything so you can live with lower base accuracy), and yout slot up the Immobilize for damage, and you have a decent single-target rotation. You can hit higher cons starting at low levels due to all the -Def. So you do okay with single-target damage. It's AoE where you have nothing going on, but that's not too unusual for half of the Controller sets... Ice, Earth, Gravity, Mind, Illusion all struggle with AoE damage. For single-target, an Earth/Cold slotted specifically for damage should be fine. Infrigidate is over 150 DPA, Fossilize is about 150, and Stone Prison is about 100, so it's not hard to maintain a single-target rotation that's over 100 DPS. Add in -Res and -Regen effects, and it can drop AV health bars.

 

For AoE... good luck. I'm using Wall of Force and waiting for the epic AoEs. Until then it's a slog, but that means that mission difficulty gets raised by +Level rather than by xNumber.

[Coyote]

Okay, Stormy, time to get to your build. First, as I said, 6-slotting sets should be reserved for the few sets that have +Defense or +Recharge in the 6th slot (or maybe +Resist for a few builds trying to max out Resists). So we're going to "Frankenslot" most of your powers instead, in order to get a better mix of set bonuses, and enhancing on the power effects. Second... slotting Tornado and Lightning Storm for KNOCKBACK is counterproductive... you want to use Sudden Acceleration KB-to-KD IO in at least Tornado, in order to MINIMIZE knockback. The difference between Tornado throwing a target away, then going to do a second of damage to it, then throwing it away again, versus knocking it down and staying right on it to melt HPs away is huge. Third, Steamy Mist is a great power, so we'll find a way to put it into the build.

 

Generalities aside, I'm going to go through the powers and discuss changes:

--Spectral Wounds: good damage power, but Devastation only gets good set bonuses up to x4. Also, we want +Recharge as our main priority in set bonuses, so I'm going to switch this to a set with +Recharge. Maybe Apocalypse once you're slotting purples, but probably Decimation until then, and use the 6th slot for a damage proc.

--Blind: I'm going to go with a damage-proc combination, ignoring set bonuses from this. You can get close to 300 damage out of at level 50 without Containment, and right now you're getting 34 damage. Yes, control is good, but a single-target Hold isn't helping much against large spawn, and against tough Bosses you have Phantom Army and Deceive, and you're better off killing the Boss faster than Holding him harder.

--Gale: Useful power if you put in a KB-to-KD IO, as it can be spammed to get the +Recharge bonus from the FF proc, while constantly knocking mobs down to keep them in Freezing Rain. Actually better at keeping mobs together like that, than Snow Storm.

--Arcane Bolt: This is also a good damage power, and it will round out your single-target rotation. If you have perma-PA without Recharge from it, then you would want to put more damage procs in it, but in general you want more +Recharge, so I will go with 5x Decimation and the Force Feedback: +Recharge, it will really help with getting PA perma.

--Superior Invisibility: This does not give much Defense, unfortunately... it's good Defense UNTIL you make an attack or get hit, and then the defense suppresses and you get only about 2% out of it. It's not worth slotting up, so just leave it with 1 slot of LotG (Luck of the Gambler) global recharge IO.

--Flash: I'm not a big fan of AoE Holds, but then again I won't argue with 6-slotting it. But we want Recharge more than Defense, so I'm going to switch the sets to get Recharge bonuses.

--Snow Storm: This power may be on the chopping block. It's not bad, but it's certainly not nearly as good as Steamy Mist, so if I have to cut it to fit in Steamy Mist, then it's gone. If I'm keeping it, then I'm dropping the slots down since it doesn't need too much enhancing and the set bonuses are bad, so 2-3 slots in it will be enough. Remember, slotting for Slow effects does NOT help with improving the -Recharge debuff of a power, so one of its main strengths can't be improved by slotting.

--Freezing Rain: Great power, but doesn't need 6 slots. Depending on what you stick in it, you can get by with just 1 slot, or slot up 2-3 IOs for its effects and 1-2 IOs that give additional -Resistance.

--Phantom Army: No wonder you're having problems surviving against AVs. You have 0 Recharge in the power, resulting in an uptime of 60 seconds followed by a 70 second downtime (when Hasten is up), which means approximately 20 more seconds of character uptime followed by 50 seconds of running back from the hospital :p. At level 50, Illusion/Storm should manage less than 10 second downtime on PA as a base value, and lower that even more with the use of Force Feedback procs. The difference between trying to survive for a minute without PA vs 5 seconds is exactly why Illusion is considered an AV killer when slotted for Recharge, but a no-Recharge build is not. I'm going to put in a mix of sets and get high Recharge in it.

--Rune of Protection: Overslotted a bit, I think it can be fine with 3-4 slots focusing on Recharge.

--Hurricane: This power's main effect is the -ToHit, not the knockback. I'm going to change to a -ToHit set and get some Recharge bonus.

--Tornado: This power NEEDS two main IOs: a Knockback-to-Knockdown IO, and a Force Feedback +Recharge IO. After that, it's slotting for Damage, Endurance, and Recharge.

--Lightning Storm: Needs a FF:+R IO, and after that slotting like Tornado, but also with Accuracy added in. I think 5xApocalypse is the best set here if you have enough money, and Decimation if not.

--Temp Invuln: overslotted at 6, 4 is quite enough.

--Health & Stamina. Right now you're not having Endurance issues because your Recharge is too low to fire the powers fast enough to get much Endurance burn. With the character rebuilt for Recharge, you WILL see a serious Endurance burn, so we'll have to add some slots and some unique IOs in these in order to help with Endurance recovery.

 

Spoiler

http://www.cohplanner.com/mids/download.php?uc=1494&c=733&a=1466&f=HEX&dc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

 

 

 

[The_Warpact]

I made an elec/rad as my GM killer, solo'd Scrapyard tonite.

 

[WitchofDread]

Anyone tested gravity or electric against an AV?