Power Pool Attack

[Spectre7878]

So is it true that power pool and ancillary pool attacks do less damage then when using them on other ATs. If so that make me sad 

Edited January 9, 2021 by Spectre7878

[Coyote]

They use an AT modifier like other attacks, so the base damage will be lower.

However, they do benefit from Containment, so they end up pretty decent after you mez a target.

[Spectre7878]

Cool thanks for the info. I was not expecting to be like mega damage dealer but I do want to kill things too. 😁

[Frosticus]

Some controllers can deal out a lot of damage, especially over a sustained period. Burst damage isn't really their forte though. 

What is your combo?

[Spectre7878]

Plant poison force of will pool

[Coyote]

Plant clears spawns better than any other Controller set. They fight for you because they're Confused so they kill each other, then your AoE Immob does double damage compared to others, and later Carrion Creepers really do a lot of AoE damage.

 

Its weakness is single-target damage, with all Smash/Lethal damage. Load up the Hold with a lot of damage procs, as many as you can afford, and also slot up the Immobilize. Now you need a 3rd single-target attack... you can go with Project Will (and then Weaken Resolve can get slotted with damage procs and an Achilles Heel), or you could drop Force of Will, and slot up Paralytic Poison with 3 damage procs (4 at 50). Either method will get you enough single-target damage to solo AVs. Note that, as @Frosticus said, much of this is DoT damage, so it won't feel as high when you're trying to finish off straggles in a spawn. But damage procs aren't DoT, and so relying on them will push more damage up front and help with quicker spawn clearing.

 

Personally, I skipped the Willpower pool... not enough slots for everything, plus the Stone Mastery pool later (for Fissure and Seismic Smash), so I couldn't properly slot its powers up. I like the pool, it's useful for a Controller since Wall of Force can do over 100 damage as a decent AoE plus set up a Force Feedback proc, but Plant/Poison is pretty slot hungry.

Edited January 10, 2021 by Coyote
Earth Mastery -> Stone Mastery

[Frosticus]

17 hours ago, Spectre7878 said:

Plant poison force of will pool

A solid combo if I do say so myself. This is the experience I had with plant/poison/stone.  A really great controller.

I'd quickly look toward turning your difficulty down, but increasing spawn size until you feel ready. I think I mostly played at -1/x5 no bosses with my plant/poison until I got a lot of the procs in place. It has never felt like a st destroyer though (enough to get it done late game), but the aoe is really good and the fun factor is very high.

 

[tidge]

I don't have experience with Force of Will, but I think it has a ranged cone with Knockback/Knockdown so it should be able to slot four %damage procs (Positron's Blast, Bombardment, Javelin Volley, Explosive Strike) and/or a %-Res from Annihilation. I have a controller with Energy Torrent (Primal Forces pool) with the four %damage and then finished off with Range & Damage slotting via HO. All things being equal, the Damage slotting may not be as important as Accuracy for most builds, but I happened to have HO Centriole (Range & Damage) just sitting around. The Damage Scales for Controllers are much lower than most other ATs, so leveraging the %damage procs can improve mission clear times.

[Uun]

I've played around with Project Will (Force of Will) and Arcane Bolt (Sorcery), and while the damage isn't terrible if the foe is contained, the animation time for both is overly long. I used the attack while leveling and then respeced out of it once I had access to the epic pools (which have much better attacks).

[capricorpse]

I generally like the Force of Will pool, especially containment on the Wall of Force power.  (if it's fitting your character thematically then maybe disregard the following...)

 

I've recently been playing a Magneto-inspired character, Gravity/Force Fields.  I know Gravity has strong single target attacks already, but I took Toxic Dart from the Experimentation pool and it's really nice to have!  Super quick animation time and recharge, and does a chunk of toxic damage follwed by more damage over a time, all doubled with Containment.  I don't think many enemies resist toxic damage.  Plus, if the enemy is moving, the dart flies in an arc with classic Magneto style. 

 

The attack does more damage than the rest of the ranged pool attacks, and is just so much faster.  Plus, the Speed of Sound/Jaunt power is really fun, that's what I was using before Combat Teleport was released. 

[carroto]

On 1/13/2021 at 3:55 PM, capricorpse said:

Toxic Dart from the Experimentation pool

That's the direction I went as well.  If Mids' is correct, it's way better DPSA than any of the other pool attacks.  However...

 

On 1/13/2021 at 3:55 PM, capricorpse said:

I don't think many enemies resist toxic damage.

I haven't done a deep dive into this myself but the impression I've gotten from those who have is that toxic is one of the more heavily resisted damage types.  I don't remember how commonly resisted it is, but when it's resisted it tends to be resisted a lot.  Off the top of my head I'm guessing all robots for a start.  So I don't know how it shakes out in the end.  I do know that the Arcane Bolt animation is unnecessarily long and I never enjoyed it when I tried it.

 

So Toxic Dart is more fun for me, and more damage against enemies that don't heavily resist toxic.  I prefer a more consistent performance, but in this case for me it's the best of the available options.