About time for me to be in control!

[Aeroprism]

Back when I used to play on live, I always wanted to try my hand at a controller.  So now that this place has given me a second CoH life, I jumped on the occasion.

 

I've spend two days looking at powers and I must confess, the decision was hard, especially from the perspective of a person used to blast and scrap.

 

I rolled two and played them both to level 10.  

 

Vic Vector, (Gravity/Kinetics).  I'm not even sure I like this one.  What should I expect in later levels?  I know that kinetics is a big deal but grav looks very lackluster for now. 

 

Vicky Volts (Electric/Time).  This was arguably a lot more fun but I seem to draw a lot more aggro than I like, even with a Tanker on board.  The powers are fun to look at and the hold potential of this combo is nothing to sneeze at (One AOE, two Single Targets and one other potential proccing AOE).

 

At any rate, how are my choices? Anything else worth recommending?  I don't want to do damage, I want to control and support.  I do not intend to solo them, they are made to play with as many players as possible, always.

 

Can't wait to read your thoughts!

[Rathulfr]

4 hours ago, Aeroprism said:

Back when I used to play on live, I always wanted to try my hand at a controller.  So now that this place has given me a second CoH life, I jumped on the occasion.

 

I've spend two days looking at powers and I must confess, the decision was hard, especially from the perspective of a person used to blast and scrap.

 

I rolled two and played them both to level 10.  

 

Vic Vector, (Gravity/Kinetics).  I'm not even sure I like this one.  What should I expect in later levels?  I know that kinetics is a big deal but grav looks very lackluster for now. 

 

Vicky Volts (Electric/Time).  This was arguably a lot more fun but I seem to draw a lot more aggro than I like, even with a Tanker on board.  The powers are fun to look at and the hold potential of this combo is nothing to sneeze at (One AOE, two Single Targets and one other potential proccing AOE).

 

At any rate, how are my choices? Anything else worth recommending?  I don't want to do damage, I want to control and support.  I do not intend to solo them, they are made to play with as many players as possible, always.

 

Can't wait to read your thoughts!

 

With 1,000 character slots per shard, way stop at just 2?  Keep trying different combinations until you find the one you like.  Re-use the same costume file for multiples, and then use the unlimited free rename tokens to rename those characters at will. 

 

That's what I did: I built/played several different Rathstars (see sig below) to try them all out, and then moved them around to different shards to be sure I had at least one on every shard.  Now whenever some has something on a specific shard, I always have a Rathstar that I like to play available.

 

I've done this with several of my different characters:  Wrathstar, Wrongbow, Booster Rocket, Wisewolf, etc.  I've got at least 2 of each of these on multiple different shards.

 

Edited August 28, 2020 by Rathulfr

[oedipus_tex]

These two characters will play very differently.

 

Gravity is a "blast" control set that trades away some control for damage, in Propel and Lift. The key powers are Propel and Wormhole at level 26. Wormhole is a power unlike any other in the game, a bt hard to describe until you've used it. It's a teleport+ stun power that doesn't alert enemies (so you can wormhole half a group away from the rest).

 

Electric Control is a very low damage Control set. Combined with /Time it's very durable and offers good control options. Main drawback, again, is the low damage. Luckily in 2020 its easier to build damage into Electric Control than it used to be. You'll want lots of procs and maybe some pool attacks.

 

 

[Aeroprism]

Thank you for the replies.  To answer properly:

 

@Rathulfr

Quote

With 1,000 character slots per shard, way stop at just 2? 

 

Simple answer really: time constraint.  While I predict I will still be around when my playing friends are done (they change games rather often), I'd like to find something I can stick with rather soon-ish.  But your suggestion is perfectly sensible though.

 

@oedipus_tex

 

I'm not worried about not doing damage with this character. I want pure control so I can allow the others to do damage as much as they like without having to worry about aggro and overpulls.

 

[oedipus_tex]

The thing to understand about Electric is it has 5 layers of AoE control, and you have to be pretty alert to master all of them. 

 

• The Hold in the AoE Hold. Identical to most other control sets, but noteable here because it is the only instant hard control you'll get with this set. In this case, it has the ranged variety of hold like Gravity or Mind Control.
• The Confuse in Synaptic Overload. This is a very unusual power. It recharges very quickly but it is a "chain" power that takes a while to spread. If you miss the first target, the whole power fails. Luckily enemies won't notice you casting it.
  • I tend to open with Synaptic, and if it misses, follow with the AoE hold.
• The Sleep in Static Field. Unlike most sleeps this is a sleep patch that will re-sleep anything standing in it. Also the sleep effect stacks, so it can sleep bosses. This power tends to work best when soloing because any "rain" style power ruins the effect
• Endurance drain. This is the secondary effect of most Electric powers, and the main effect of Conductive Aura, your PBAoE aura power. Endurance drain is its own topic with a lot written about it. To make this a viable debuff, you will need to play at close range frequently. Luckily, Time is one of the best sets for this. Electric Control has few tools for draining endurance quickly, if you want to be a master sapper, look to Power Sink in the Mu pool.
• Knockdown. Available in Jolting Chain, and occasionally from your Gremlns. In general, Knockdown combos well with your Sleep power. You can knock something down, they fall over and are re-slept before they can stand.

 

I forget the command to do it, but its helpful to turn on the enemy health bar in-game so you can see how much endurance enemies have remaining. 

Edited August 28, 2020 by oedipus_tex

[Aeroprism]

Electric it is.  Just for the sleep patch. This is pure awesome.

 

Also, our current group has a robot/electric Mastermind and an storm/electric Defender, so power drainage is definitely doable!

 

Looks like Vicky is gonna get some love!

[Doomguide2005]

4 hours ago, Aeroprism said:

Electric it is.  Just for the sleep patch. This is pure awesome.

 

Also, our current group has a robot/electric Mastermind and an storm/electric Defender, so power drainage is definitely doable!

 

Looks like Vicky is gonna get some love!

Ooo, multiple drainers would make several of my Elec types jealous.  More than possible with several using drain (and -recovery) to very rapidly drain and keep drained entire mobs making it far more effective at keeping a team safe.

[Doc Ranger]

I would suggest something like Plant/Dark when you tire of Elec/Time.
 

The End drain aspect of the game doesn’t really work very well. Just when you think all the enemies have no endurance they continue to fire off attacks. 

 

Lots of fun choices though.

 

[Doomguide2005]

7 hours ago, Doc Ranger said:

I would suggest something like Plant/Dark when you tire of Elec/Time.
 

The End drain aspect of the game doesn’t really work very well. Just when you think all the enemies have no endurance they continue to fire off attacks. 

 

Lots of fun choices though.

 

That's where -recovery and multiple Elec on the team come in.  With recovery also floored the foes ability to recover a server tic of end also gets minimized making attacks much less frequent.

 

But I will agree Plant/Dark as well as numerous other combos make for a wide variety of excellent choices. I say that as someone whose main over all is a scrapper and tends to be very aggressively scrapper-like no matter what AT I'm I'm actually playing.

[Doc Ranger]

Yeah I play in the middle of everything. No matter how aggressive I tried to play my Elec/Dark (similar play to a /Time) nothing really got done. Yes the mobs were locked but you absolutely need help to take out the mobs you control. Soloing is just awful if you are forced into it one.

 

I just dismantled my 50 Elec/Dark to find a new defender.

[oedipus_tex]

To add some much needed damage to an Elec build, I recommend taking Cross Punch in the Fighting Pool (it's my baseline assumption you are also taking Punch/Tough/Weave). It's a melee attack, but you'll be in enemy's faces anyway as an Electric Controller. Note I'm making the assumption that Cross Punch does Containment damage; I haven't actually tested this.

 

Also, put damage procs in Jolting Chain. It won't do amazing damage, but it's not awful.

Edited August 30, 2020 by oedipus_tex

[VV]

On 8/29/2020 at 10:40 AM, Doc Ranger said:

I would suggest something like Plant/Dark when you tire of Elec/Time.
 

The End drain aspect of the game doesn’t really work very well. Just when you think all the enemies have no endurance they continue to fire off attacks. 

 

Lots of fun choices though.

 

I have a Plant/Dark and it is just insanely good. Slot those procs and it just chews through stuff so fast. Like Dominator fast. 

 

The end drain of the control set works way better than the blaster version of it. You can easily keep the baddies at zero and mostly keep them from firing attacks.

 

21 hours ago, Doc Ranger said:

Yeah I play in the middle of everything. No matter how aggressive I tried to play my Elec/Dark (similar play to a /Time) nothing really got done. Yes the mobs were locked but you absolutely need help to take out the mobs you control. Soloing is just awful if you are forced into it one.

Interesting. I was thinking of doing an Elect/Dark, but then I decided on Elect/Rad because of the Conductive Aura / Choking Cloud combo

[EmperorSteele]

If neither combo does it for you, mix it up. Elec/Kin should synergize very well; Kin can shore up your damage, and two of its powers also drain Endurance, but don't affect recovery, which Elec/* should help with.

 

But that's just theorycrafting!

[Doomguide2005]

They will have 3 of 3 characters with -End and -Recovery powers.  One with Electric Blast, one with Electric Affinity and one Electric Control.  Foes will almost immediately be rendered impotent with no endurance and recovery flatlined (as well as stunned and slept etc).  That's theory turned into practice.  I don't think damage will be a huge problem either if perhaps a bit of a late bloomer given the presence of Storm and well buffed pets (Robots, Gremlins).  Yes solo end drain/recovery is hard to make effective.  But this isn't solo it's a static team of 3 which might include other pick up members.