Fire/ Controller suggestions

[LEUGIM6]

Hello fellow HCers.

 

I am going to start a new toon, a Fire controller. The idea is to solo quite a bit but whenever I have the time I also enjoy being useful in teams.

I am undecided about the secondaries: /Kin , /Cold , /Dark.

 

Fire/Kin is obviously a possibility, although I've played a Kin Defender till 32 back in the day. Of course, a Kin Defender and a Fire/Kin troller are probably very different in playstyle.

/Dark and /Cold are also ideas, although I think that /Cold is not that good of a combo with Fire, especially early on and soloing (every shield would be useless until 32).

 

I know every build can be good, especially at lvl 50 with fully pimped enhancements and Incarnates. 

Perhaps as a good old timer from back in the day, I prefer to think on the leveling experience.

 

Any ideas and suggestions? I really can't seem to decide.

Thanks.

 

Bio-Flame

 

 

PS - Not that it is important, but this controller will be "inspired" on my wife, as a joke and tease. Nothing serious. Going to dress the toon with really skimpy clothes and the backstory will be something like a woman that reaches her adolescence years and finds out that men (and women) stare at her mid-section and are unable to think, speak nor act (a controller).  Again, it's just to tease my wife. Lol.

Hence the ideas of /kin, /cold, /dark.

[Crowcus Pocus]

Fire/Dark. Because nothing would beat the feeling of turning to your wife and say "Hello darkness, my old friend".

On a more serious note, Fire/Dark. Because it's great from the get go, while the other combos take a while (in terms of powers and building defenses) to truly shine.

[LEUGIM6]

Now that IS funny. ehehehhe

Anyways, how is Fire/Dark compared to the obvious Fire/Kin?

 

I like conceptual ideas and obviously Fire/Dark is more appropriate then Fire/Kin. But in the end, if it's not fun and powerful to play, it's not worth it.

[Olly]

+1 for fire/dark. If you're planning on leveling, I suggest expecting to have a leveling build that is different from your level 50 and beyond build. I've played fire/kin on live, and just had a go at ill/dark.  Dark is plenty powerful and fun.

[Crowcus Pocus]

Damage wise, /Kin will always beat /Dark except for very specific scenarios (eg: AV fights) where you're less likely to take full advantage of Fulcrum Shift. While with /Dark you'll get a consistently good - and more relaxing - performance at all times.

 

Having played all three combos here's my quick rundown:

Fire/Dark
Great all rounder for both solo and teams at any level. It's the most survivable toon by a long shot, while still dishing out good damage. Fade is a great team buff and also helps to keep your squishy Imps alive.
 

Fire/Kin
There's a reason why this was the go-to farmer for a long time back then. If built right, it's an insatiable killing machine. But, again, it's a late bloomer and requires a bit of investment before it shines. Turns everyone in your team into a wrecking ball. Imps are likely die a bunch, unless you immediately control the mobs or spend more time than you should caring about placement or throwing in extra heals.

Fire/Cold
Late bloomer, but very powerful - especially against AV/GMs or on fast pacing teams. Bonfire and Sleet give you a pretty decent control of the battle field which *almost* makes up for the lack of self defenses (except for arctic fog) or heals when leveling.

Edited February 13, 2021 by Falsey

[Coyote]

Fire/Dark is my vote. It's by far the strongest defensively, and it's still decent on offense with a good -Resist power. Against AVs it has good -Regen and the best -Damage in the game (well, tied with Dark Miasma, but that's almost the same set). It works pretty well early, and while you have to wait to get your +Recovery power, you wait even longer with Cold and Kin.

[Cryoterm]

Mine´s Fire/Rad, and 0 complaints about that!

[Crowcus Pocus]

1 hour ago, Anodina said:

Mine´s Fire/Rad, and 0 complaints about that!

Woah! What are you doing?! Trying to make the OP even more confused? Stawp!

[Doomguide2005]

Fire/Storm, uncontrolled chaos incarnate.  Flaming Monkey's chasing Tornado and Lightning Storm victims every which way.

[oedipus_tex]

An unsung soloist combo IMO is Fire/Traps. Although Caltrops doesn't do Containment damage, it adds a respectable amount of AoE damage. Of the available Control sets, Fire Control is in one of the best possible positions to take advantage of this. It won't out damage a later game Fire/Kin, but it should dish healthy damage from early in the career until the end of the game.

[Nemeroff]

I vote for /Kin because of the synergy with Transfusion, Transference, Siphon Power, Increase Density with Imps.

 

I also vote for /Dark, good set with with a variety of tools; don't know if fear and hot feet would mesh. But for thematics it might tip the scale.

[Hjarki]

On 2/13/2021 at 10:01 AM, Coyote said:

Fire/Dark is my vote. It's by far the strongest defensively, and it's still decent on offense with a good -Resist power. Against AVs it has good -Regen and the best -Damage in the game (well, tied with Dark Miasma, but that's almost the same set). It works pretty well early, and while you have to wait to get your +Recovery power, you wait even longer with Cold and Kin.

Darkest Night is -30% damage. Twilight Grasp can stack -10% for 20 sec every 8 sec. I suppose you could get another -50% or so out of it if you're constantly using Twilight Grasp.

 

Siphon Power applies -20% damage for 30 secs every 20 sec. It's not unreasonable to stack -80% from this power alone. Fulcrum Shift will stack another -20%. So Kinetics is almost always going to yield more -damage than Dark Affinity. Siphon Speed will also substantially reduce the damage of a single target since it can be triple-stacked for -60% recharge.

 

Tar Patch can usually be double-stacked for -45% resist. However, Siphon Power + Fulcrum Shift is likely to increase your total +damage enough that you're dealing 50% more damage even against a single target.

 

Howling Twlight is -500% Regen for 30 secs every 3 minutes. Realistically, this will probably end up being -250% Regen over time. Transfusion is -50% Regen for 20 secs every 8 secs, so it's fairly easy to hit the point where you're getting -250% Regen over time.

 

Dark inarguably has better personal defenses, though.

[Coyote]

1 hour ago, Hjarki said:

Darkest Night is -30% damage. Twilight Grasp can stack -10% for 20 sec every 8 sec. I suppose you could get another -50% or so out of it if you're constantly using Twilight Grasp.

 

Siphon Power applies -20% damage for 30 secs every 20 sec. It's not unreasonable to stack -80% from this power alone. Fulcrum Shift will stack another -20%. So Kinetics is almost always going to yield more -damage than Dark Affinity. Siphon Speed will also substantially reduce the damage of a single target since it can be triple-stacked for -60% recharge.

 

Two things:

1) I only assume about 3-4 stacks of TG, but that's 60%. However, Dark Servant stacks his own TG for almost 2 stacks, and runs his own Darkest Night for another 30%. So he puts out about 50%. You can get around 100% more easily out of Dark Affinity without spending as much animation time.

2) However, you also get the bonus from having Tar Patch's -Resist, which boosts the effects of -Damage. So if you average -30% Resist from Tar Patch (average stacking, though you can probably do better), then you're up to about -130% from Dark Affinity.

 

Note, BTW, that I think Fulcrum Shift's debuff will stack and you can probably average -30% out of it over the long run. But with the -Resist, Dark is still ahead a bit, and it's far more efficient because spamming Twilight Grasp also adds -Regen (same values as Transfusion, as I recall). It's hard for Kinetics to spam Transfusion for the -Regen, Siphon Power, keep up with Siphon Speed and Fulcrum Shift, run Transference once in a while, and still manage to attack. But that's another topic, to be fair... on the topic of -Damage, I still hold with Dark.

Edited February 14, 2021 by Coyote

[oedipus_tex]

Coyote is right about Dark Affinity. The set is already good at low levels, but the T9 pet is what really makes it great. Because the pet uses its own debuffs and AoE heals, you're freed from having to spend as much animation time on that in normal combat, and against hard targets have a lot of ability to stack the effects.

[Tacheyon]

Fire/Ta is also a good pairing.  Entangling can set up containment with smoke and cages.  And nothing keeps mobs in a Lit Oil Slick than Bonfire (with KB to KD in it).  And your targeted debuffs keep everything weak for your Fire Minions to go crazy on them.

[Hjarki]

6 hours ago, oedipus_tex said:

Coyote is right about Dark Affinity. The set is already good at low levels, but the T9 pet is what really makes it great. Because the pet uses its own debuffs and AoE heals, you're freed from having to spend as much animation time on that in normal combat, and against hard targets have a lot of ability to stack the effects.

I usually discount the pet because it's so fragile.

[Area Man]

Fire/Kin is good but expect a lot of deaths if you solo, until upper levels.  Fire/Kin has lots of offense, but Kinetics has no defensive powers other than the heal.  

Fire/Storm is fun, chaotic, and expect to run out of endurance a lot.

Fire/Rad has some unique synergies which make it very strong.  Fire Control can (and should) be played in melee much of the time.  This is mainly due to Hot Feet, which is Damage/Slow/Afraid.  Combine that with Rad's Choking Cloud, which is one of the rare toggle holds.  With a Fire/Rad, if a Foe is held by Choking Cloud, the Foe is also being slowly burned while held.  The Slow in Hot Feet also prevents foes from running out of Choking Cloud very fast, making both powers more effective.

Rad has not only heal and a great buff in AM, but also great toggle debuffs in EF and RI, plus the great -Regen debuff of LingRad.  Your Flashfire/Fire Cages combo is improved with RI, which is a strong ToHit and Defense Debuff -- when the foes recover from the Stun, they still will have trouble hitting you, but you can hit them more easily.  EF is a Resistance Debuff which helps you and your imps kill faster.

Plus, EM Pulse is one of the strongest PB AoE holds in the game, to supplement your own Fire PB AoE hold.  Because you have two, you can use them more because you have a back-up.

Rad is great solo, but can also be great in teams.  Two ally-only powers are easily skippable, making builds easy.

Want something amazing?  Join a full team of Fire/Rads -- everything just melts.

 

Edited February 16, 2021 by Area Man

[LEUGIM6]

Hey Guys.

I went with Fire/Dark. So far it has been fun, except for the endurance issues.

 

It's safe, it's relatively fast and fun.

[Coyote]

4 hours ago, BioFlame said:

Hey Guys.

I went with Fire/Dark. So far it has been fun, except for the endurance issues.

 

It's safe, it's relatively fast and fun.

 

Fire Controllers are terrible on Endurance until you get a way to solve it with the secondary. Fortunately, Dark gets the solution at level 28 rather than waiting for Transference or Heat Absorption.

[Chakykia]

/dark will be very strong for soloing. But if you're running with a team in the late game, /dark feels almost useless. Everybody in the team has enough defense, so nobody will benefit from all those -to hit powers. The animations are very long and the fight is allmost done, before you can get your powers going. 

 

Every team will love a /kin! Faster recharge, lots of endurance and allmost everybody is fighting at damage cap. Fire/kin is also very fun, fast and safe to play solo.