The lvl 41 Clockwork King AV challenge for Controllers

[LynxNordique]

The test is to solo, at even level, preferably at level 41 (not exempt down), the Clockwork King as an Arch-Villain (not an Elite Boss). It's a mission easy to get as it is systematically the first mission given by Tina MacIntyre. You can also do it as a flashback mission in the Orobouros (being a badge mission). The Clockwork King is still a Heavy hitter and a decently challenging AV. He’s not a walk in the park, like, say, Malaise or Vandal, but he is not hard like Ghost Widow or Lanaru the Mad.

 

At level 41, you do have your toon decently slotted and you start to work on your Epic Pool, but you don't have access to the Incarnate stuff, obviously, so it is a decent point of comparison for controller primaries and secondaries in a solo AV hunting context. Moreover, Powers like Hasten, and some end recovery tools from the secondaries aren’t Perma, at this point.

 

Rules are:

 

1) Fight the Clockwork King setup as an even level AV, alone with your primary and secondary pets. You can set the mission +0/1, +0/2, +0/3, etc. it's up to you. 

2) No temp weapon, or temp power pet, but Accolade powers are ok, if you earned them at this point.

3) No Supergroup buffs

4) No P2W powers, buffs, signature summon or weapon (not even sands of mu and the like)

5) You can use inspirations if you need them, but only the ones in your tray (so no email standing by). It would be appreciated, for fair comparison or to highlight some limits of a given build, if you can mention the types of inspirations you had to rely heavily on. 

6) You can use everything in your primaries, secondaries, and pool powers.

7) Obviously, you have to do the mission solo.

 

The questions to answer:

Can you survive the whole encounter (did you take multiple trip to the PI hospital or not)?

How long did it take to defeat the AV?

Did you have to use lots of inspirations? If yes, which ones?

Did you notice anything particular about the fight (like it was click heavy, ran out of end multiple times, could you or not set up containment, etc)?

Did you use any noticeable tactics?

Etc.

 

So far, I tested 7 combos:

4 are Earth controllers. They all took the same powers: Fossilize, Sone Cages, Quicksand, Stalagmites, Earthquake, Volcanic Gasses and Animated Stone. Pool powers are the same too. Combat jumping, Super Jump, Acrobatics, Hasten, Assault, Indomitable Will, Mind over Body. The /dark didn’t take Stealth (because of Shadow Fall), but the others did.

 

The fifth build was a Dark/Dark Controller. Her pool powers are Combat jumping, Super Jump, Acrobatics, Hasten and Indomitable Will. She uses a lot of her primary and secondary powers…

 

The sixth is a Fire/Dark Controller. Her pool powers are Combat jumping, Super Jump, Acrobatics, Hasten, Indomitable Will and Mind over body.

 

The seventh build was a Dark/Rad controller. Her pool powers are Combat jumping, Super Jump, Acrobatics, Hasten, Stealth, Assault, Indomitable Will, Mind over Body.

 

Earth/Rad

The first one was an Earth/Rad controller. Took me a little while to find the right way to fight the CK, so she took one or two trips to the PI hospital. Once I figured it out, like the toon placement, right number of inspirations, etc it went Ok. At level 41, the fight took 13 minutes. I had some endurance issues and very little defense, so I had to use lots of blues and some purples. This build only had Single Origin Enhancements at that point. The good thing is that some of the debuffs are toggles, so it is fire and forget. I didn't have enough endurance to keep the King immobilize to setup containment, all the time. Lingering radiation is great. You don't want it to miss! I was taking damages and it was not easy to keep Stoney alive, I had to recast it sometimes during the fight. However, Stoney never ran out of end, because of Accelerate Metabolism. Radiant Aura is a decent heal, but I had to cast it constantly to keep the pet alive.

 

Earth/Kin

This toon was also mostly a Single Origin build at level 41 (Had one power slotted with Will of the Controller, but that was it). She took 11 minutes to take down the King, so the third best time of the bunch. I was a bit lucky that a minion stayed alive in melee range most of the fight as it helped adding up a bit for Fulcrum shift. The heal, despite needing to hit, is very strong. Transference made sure that I never ran out of endurance, so I could even setup and maintain containment (with stone cages) easily. I had to use some purples for a time or two that Stoney's taunt failed. But that was about it. However, I’d like to mention that Kinetics is a clicking hell in that kind of fight. Not only I had to keep casting, like the other builds, Fossilize, Stone cages, volcanic gasses, indomitable will and hasten, but I also had to constantly cast the heal (because of the -regen debuff), transference, siphon speed, siphon power, and obviously fulcrum shift. It makes the fight more stressful, but it also ends faster. It felt less safe that the rad and dark setup, but it seems more powerful in terms of damage dealing. 

 

Earth/Dark

This toon was also mostly a Single Origin build at level 41 (had only one +pet damage resistance and that's all). She couldn't take down the Clockwork King at level 41. Even when filling my inspiration tray with blues, I couldn't maintain doing enough damages to the King. Stoney would run out of end and slow down his attack chain, to the point where he could not dent significantly the King, even with the -regen of my heal. I would also go through a tray almost full of blues and not getting below 3/4 of the health bar of the King. I figured out that it was probably because I didn't slot enough Sould absoption. So had to wait to level 42, to slot more efficiently that power. After slotting a bit more endurance modifications and recharge in soul absobtion I tried again, against the King at level 42. This time, Stoney's damages and the -regen of the heal could overcome the King's hitpoints. It took 14 Minutes 40 seconds to defeat him!... Even with soul absorption I still had to go through half a tray of blue inspirations (the large ones). But Stoney would not run out of end, at least. It is worth noting that this was the safest fight (compared to /rad and /kin), as the King could barely land hits. The Dark Servant helped setting up containment from time to time with its tenebrous tentacles, but it mostly helped with the added - tohit debuff. I could not maintain containment, because constantly casting stone cages would make me run out of end more often (I did have an endurance reduction slotted in stone cages). I also used Shadow Fall, Darkest night and Tar patch the whole fight. At that time, I didn’t take Howling Twilight and it was a mistake, as the -regen is very strong. I suspect that if I had Howling Twilight, the fight would have ended way sooner.

 

Earth/Time

Well, I heard good stuff about Time. It is supposed to be great in the end game with all its buffs and debuffs. After testing, I came to the conclusion that it’s a poor alternative to /Rad, as /Rad  does everything better except it doesn’t have a -heal. That’s about it. The end cost was as bad as the other builds tested, but it just couldn’t beat or damage the King enough. The -regen powers were recharging fast, but they are way weaker than Howling Twilight or Lingering radiation. At least, it was an Earth controller, so Stoney could stand up to the King, keep the attention and provide safety. But, after 6 minutes and my inspiration tray almost empty, I could barely dent the King’s health bar. It’s a shame because the effects look cool, but it’s really not that great for AV soloing. I won’t bother retry at level 42.  It could also be just me who did not figure out that secondary well enough.

 

Dark/Dark

This toon was also mostly a Single Origin build at level 41 (had two +pet damage resistance, expedient reinforcement and will of the controller sets). To my surprise, she had the fourth-best time! She defeated the King in 11 minutes 40 seconds! The fight was safe. The King hit her less than 10 times, but the endurance was a serious issue, like the Earth/dark. She ate half a tray of blues. Halfway through the King’s health bar, I stopped trying to immobilize the King, and just concentrate on the hold and the heal (for its -regen) otherwise I was going to run out of blues before the end of the fight. Soul Absorption was again instrumental to make sure the pets didn’t run out of end. I kept Tar patch, shadow fall and darkest night always up. The Umbra beast was only defeated once, so I had no problem recasting it.  I think, the difference was the Haunts. Whenever they were ready, I was casting them. The Umbra Beast and the Haunts did decent damages combined (better than an Animated Stone alone). The Dark Servant damages are negligible (only the Tenebrous tentacles do some minor DoT) but it helped keeping the fight safe and the added -regen of the heal is nice. It is noted that the Umbra Beast do get the attention of the AV most of the time, but not as much as an Animated Stone, So I had the Attention of the king probably about one fifth of the fight, but I never feared for my safety. I only had one recharge in Howling Twilight at that time.

 

Fire/Dark

This toon was all Single origin, except Char and Soul Absorption, which are slotted with 5 slots of Attuned set. This toon, has serious end issues, because of Hot Feet. I didn’t use Hot Feet at all during the fight and cast Bonfire occasionally, instead. She was the second fastest to defeat the King, with a time of 9 minutes 30 seconds. She took one medium defense inspiration at the start and the rest were blues and one breakfree (just in case when IW was down), And the Blues were really needed! She could barely run Acrobatics, Darkest Night and Shadow fall (it gives Psionic resistance). I had 6 large blues in the tray and finished them all. I cast Soul absorption (to help with the endurance), Howling Twilight (to kill the regen), Tar patch, fade and Dark servant whenever they were ready. I tried to setup containment with ring of fire, but I could not keep up doing that, as it was costing way too much end. I was casting constantly Char and Twilight grasp (to help with the -tohit and -regen). Fun fact, the King murdered all 3 imps in one shot at the very beginning of the fight, so I was getting all the aggro after that. I had to fight it only with Char, bonfire and the Dark servant until the Imps were ready for recast. After that, every pet survived the rest of the fight and I only got hit a bit more seriously once. I was not expecting the Imps to survive the rest of fight, but they did! At this point, I’m beginning to think that Dark Affinity is one of the better secondaries for AV soloing.  

 

Dark/Rad

This build is all Single Origin, except a controller set, a winter hold set and a + res pet aura proc. Not surprisingly, this build died a couple of times, and it took me multiple tries and a respec to optimize before prevailing. In my first tries, She was doing good damage on the King, thanks to the 3 pets, Enervating Field and Lingering radiation. But she was taking a lot more damage than expected, so she could not keep herself or the pets alive, even with the PBAoE Heal. A respec was don to put 2 Tohit debuffs SO in Radiation infection. There was already one in Fearsome stare (since it’s the strongest tohit debuff of this primary). I filled my inspiration tray with mainly big blues, some purples and oranges. Then, Surprise! She beat the King in 5 minutes 30 seconds. The whole inspiration tray was used, and she couldn’t cast the immobilize (to set up containment) as it was costing ways too much end. The King only killed the Wolf once. I suspect that combo will become a very good AV killer, with the right slotting and set bonuses.

 

After testing 2 Darkness Control builds, I came to the conclusion that it’s a primary offering pretty good damages, if you take into consideration the Haunts. It even did better than the Fire/Dark; which is a surprise.

 

I will probably try other primaries and secondaries, eventually.

  

I admit I didn’t use Howling Twilight enough or at all on the Earth/Dark and Dark/Dark. I suspect the results would be better if I was redoing the test today. My point is that a certain combos could do better or worst based on the power choices, slotting and tactics, so this is in no way a scientific test 😊 . It’s fun and it’s a learning experience.

 

If you want to try that challenge with a different combo (or the same), please let us know the results and your tactics.

Edited February 22, 2022 by LynxNordique

[Doomguide2005]

     On the subject of Howling Twilight

Yes it's a very powerful Regeneration debuff.   It also lasts only 30 sec.  I'm not sure how much recharge you can get on a mostly SO build.  Thinking about 170% -> ~100% in HT + 70% for Hasten and Hasten won't be perma and then maybe another part-time burst from using Geas of the Kind Ones->another +100% while Geas is running.  In short HT is going to have less than 50% uptime.  Still it is going to help and there's the regen and damage debuffs of Twilight's Grasp as well (which self stack).

 

     I've never tried Time and definitely haven't paired it to date with Earth but it doesn't surprise me you had trouble denting CWK.  Minimal regen debuff (as in TG mentioned above can develop more -regen) on a low damage primary is going to be rough.

 

    Overall interesting, thanks for sharing.

[LynxNordique]

I did the test with the Fire/Dark controller, which is still level 41. Howling Twilight has only one lvl 44 Recharge SO slotted. in that build. The recharge time of HT with hasten activated is 1 min 27 sec. So that means that it's on about one third of the time, during the AV fight.. So, the rest of the time, the -Regen comes from the stacking of Twilight Grasp cast by the toon and the Dark Servant. The -resistance is obviously provided by the Tar Patch. 

 

 

[Without_Pause]

With Rad winning out, I suspect faster times from Fire/rad and Ill/rad. Cold should give a run for top spot as well.

[LynxNordique]

Well, I tried soloing the King, back on Live, with a Fire/Rad. I remembered getting murdered repeatedly because of the lack of defense to stack up with the -tohit of Radiation Infection. She was a great Farmer, but not a Good solo AV hunter.

 

I did not have smoke, if I recall correctly tho, which adds  -Tohit. But I doubt it would have made a big difference. So, if anyone would like to try, be my guess. I would really like to know how they pulled that off at lvl 41. Maybe going in with lots of Attuned IOs with the right set bonuses? Half tray of Purple and half tray of Blues?  

 

Illusion/Rad sounds like a great combo, I will try that next.

 

It would also be great to see the result for /Cold and Illusion/Dark. If anyone would like to try these, I'm curious to see how they perform.

[Uun]

Tried this through Ouro with two 50s, both exemped to 45 with Incarnates disabled. Both builds are fully IOed, but neither has any defense/resistance to psi to speak of. I think I used 1-2 greens, but largely did this without inspirations.

 

First I tried this with my Illusion/Poison, which is my go to for soloing AVs. Unfortunately, Psychic CK has 50% resistance to psi damage. I couldn't put a dent in him with only one non-psi attack, even with Phantom Army out the whole time, so I aborted after a few minutes. 

 

Second try was on my Fire/Nature. Spore Cloud and Corrosive Enzymes largely kept him neutered, and he was held whenever the purple triangles were down. I alternated between Wild Growth and Wild Bastion and used Overgrowth and Rune of Protection whenever they were up. Had one death early when he got lucky with his nuke, but I combat rezzed with Rise of the Phoenix. Total time from entering the mission to completion was 9:17.

[Uun]

Did one more with my Grav/Storm. With no -regen, this took 16:00. Popped Elusive Mind before I went in, but once I positioned myself with Hurricane, he barely hit me. Used 2 blues and 2 greens and hit Hibernate twice.

[LynxNordique]

This is interesting about Illusion. I did not forsee that (the Psi resistance of the CWK).

I managed to level up to 41 the Illusion/rad controller I created Wednesday. Here’s the results:

Illusion/Rad

This build is also a all Single Origin, except Some Expedient reinforcement for the Phantom army and Preventive medicine full set for Radiant Aura. Well, It may be because she is a /Rad, with enervating field and decently fast recharging Lingering radiation, but she was doing constantly ok damages. She kissed the ground on the first try after 8 minutes, half a tray of blues already taken and the King at a quarter of his health. I restocked with 8 blues. 6 big purples, 2 big oranges and one big red. This time, she defeated the King in 9 minutes 55 seconds. He killed the Phantasm with his opening nuke, but she managed to keep him alive after recasting him. She rarely used any holds. Instead, she made sure Spectral Terror was always up (I slotted it with Tohit debuff, so it could stack with Radiation Infection). She used phantom army whenever it was up. To my surprise, the Decoys taunt is not as effective as the Animated stone one. The controller was getting the attention instead of them, from time to time, when they were up. It was mainly the pets that did the damages and even gave a break with the stacking fear when the purple triangles were down. The controller’s job was to keep the two debuff toggles running, casting lingering radiation, renewing the pets when they were available, healing the Phantasm and that’s about it. She ate a red at the very end of the fight, when the King was at a silver of its health to finish him with Spectral wounds.

So Dark/Rad is still the fastest at this point     

To see the effect of a fully slotted build, I redid the test with the Earth/Rad, with the Ouro Flashback mission and disabling all the Incarnate powers, including the Alpha. She is fully IOed out with set bonuses, including multiple Purple sets, some Luck of the Gamble +recharge, HOs, some +5, etc. However, she does not have lots of Proc, as she relies on numbers and set bonuses. The King nearly murdered her at the start of the fight, before Stoney got the Agro, but after that she was fine. She used one blue, because that is all she had in the tray. There was some toggle management required, like disabling Stealth and Super Jump mid fight, because end was not easy to deal with. However, RI and EF ran the whole fight and she was able to keep setting up containment with stone prison. The only significant damage sources were Fossilize, Stoney and Volcanic Gasses. The fight lasted 4:15 (compared to 13 minutes originally at level 41)   

It seems that being fully slotted and optimized does have a significant impact.

[Uun]

12 hours ago, LynxNordique said:

Illusion/Rad

This build is also a all Single Origin, except Some Expedient reinforcement for the Phantom army and Preventive medicine full set for Radiant Aura. Well, It may be because she is a /Rad, with enervating field and decently fast recharging Lingering radiation, but she was doing constantly ok damages. She kissed the ground on the first try after 8 minutes, half a tray of blues already taken and the King at a quarter of his health. I restocked with 8 blues. 6 big purples, 2 big oranges and one big red. This time, she defeated the King in 9 minutes 55 seconds. He killed the Phantasm with his opening nuke, but she managed to keep him alive after recasting him. She rarely used any holds. Instead, she made sure Spectral Terror was always up (I slotted it with Tohit debuff, so it could stack with Radiation Infection). She used phantom army whenever it was up. To my surprise, the Decoys taunt is not as effective as the Animated stone one. The controller was getting the attention instead of them, from time to time, when they were up. It was mainly the pets that did the damages and even gave a break with the stacking fear when the purple triangles were down. The controller’s job was to keep the two debuff toggles running, casting lingering radiation, renewing the pets when they were available, healing the Phantasm and that’s about it. She ate a red at the very end of the fight, when the King was at a silver of its health to finish him with Spectral wounds.

Interesting. It's got to be the difference in -regen between Lingering Radiation (-500%) and Envenom (-50% stackable). Poison can stack far more -resist than Rad.

[EmperorSteele]

Heh.

If you'll allow a brief detour, this reminds me of my favorite CoH moment: Back on Live, around issue... 6-ish? Well before IOs anyway, I was on a random PI PuG on my Mind/Kin/Psi. The team was an Invuln Tank, a Fire Armor Tank (maybe scrapper), and an assortment of blasters and defenders. We get to THIS mission and things start falling apart. The Tanks were not ready for all the PSI damage, so the defenders and I had our hands full keeping them on them on their feet.

Then we get to the Clockwork King, who was +2 iirc. The team, feeling fairly confident despite the bit of a beating we had been taking, charged in.

BAM, the tanks faceplanted instantly. Fire tank rezzed himself and instantly got put down again. CK took down one or two others. I called a retreat to regroup, saying I would hold him off. The rest of the team fled while I popped IW and an orange, and went to work. I sapped him with Siphon Power and Fulcrum shift, and used Transfusion to heal any damage he did. He summoned more minions? I confused them. I attacked when I could, but was focused on keeping him neutered. All I was trying to do was buy the team some time and breathing room, but moments turned into minutes, and I finally realized "hey wait, where's the team?" I took a moment to pan my camera around while FS was animating and saw it: The team on a nearby hill, cheering me on! And that's when I realized, "Holy shit, I'm soloing an AV!"

But then I realized something else: I may have been tanking the AV, but... I wasn't doing much damage. So I told everyone to come help and they did, and we promptly committed regicide 😃

That said, I don't recommend Mind/Kin for this experiment. It'll survive, but without anything to deal damage while you're busy using your kin powers to debuff him and stay alive, you won't get anywhere.
 

[LynxNordique]

That is what it is nice about controllers. Some can solo Archvillain, and they can all make the fight safer for the allies, if you fight AV as a team. 

 

You can't jump in the fight like you only have to make sure your shields are up, and you punch the AV, like damage dealers. You must know your opening moves and you must be prepared that a lot of your attacks don't deal much (if any) damages since their sole purposes are to debuff and control. You might have to buff and heal yourself and allies mid fight as well. You might have to adapt if something doesn't work as planned. So, it requires one to think and use tactics. At the end the day, some controllers end up doing impressive things.

 

Today I created two new controllers for the test:

 

The first one is a dark/cold controller. Darkness control seems to be one of the most efficient solo AV hunters, based on the test ran above (if it is paired with a secondary with either some tohit debuff and/or defense). There are some requests above for Cold domination and there are people who did amazing things with their /Cold controllers. It does provide some defense. Looking forward to test that.

 

The other one I created is an Illusion/Dark. I heard people calling that combo the OP Mastermind. I have teamed up with some and they were very impressive. I can't wait to see how this combo performs.

 

If someone levels one of those faster than me (which is very likely), please feel free to let us know the results. If you want to try another combo (already tested or not) that would be great to know your results. 
 

 

  

Edited March 4, 2022 by LynxNordique

[Without_Pause]

Not sure how the Ill/dark will perform better. My Ill/dark had end issues until I converted over to IOs. I just think with the resistance factor added in, Ill isn't really build for this. 

[Uun]

On 3/4/2022 at 4:23 PM, LynxNordique said:

The first one is a dark/cold controller. Darkness control seems to be one of the most efficient solo AV hunters, based on the test ran above (if it is paired with a secondary with either some tohit debuff and/or defense). There are some requests above for Cold domination and there are people who did amazing things with their /Cold controllers. It does provide some defense. Looking forward to test that.

I think you're misinterpreting. The most efficient (of what's been posted) is */Rad due to the -500% regen debuff in Lingering Radiation (90 sec rech). Look at how well the IO'ed Earth/Rad did. Other secondaries that offer -500% regen are Dark/Howling Twilight (180 sec rech), Cold/Benumb (120 sec rech) and Thermal/Heat Exhaustion (120 sec rech) w/ 40 sec duration. Traps/Poison Trap has -1000%, but it only has a 10 sec duration. Of these, you stand the best chance of making the debuff perma on Rad and Thermal, however, Thermal's -resist debuff is on a long recharge, 6 of the 9 powers are ally only and it has no -tohit. Cold is a great set, but it also lacks any -tohit. Rad has the best toolkit for this once you get the endurance under control.

[LynxNordique]

As seen in the tests I ran that I documented here previously, 3 rad builds were tested: Illusion control, Earth Control (the two that are considered some of the best solo AV hunter controllers due to resilient pets with taunt) and Darkness control. By far, the Dark/Rad was the fastest.

 

Earth/Rad: 13:00
Illusion/Rad: 9:55
Dark/Rad: 5:30

 

Without _pause argued that Illusion is at a disadvantage against the CWK due to the Psi resist.  But keep in mind that, so far in the overall test, illusion is still in the third place (Illusion/rad); very close to Fire/Dark, which is pretty good, even considering the psi resistance. This is probably due to the fact that the Phantasm is still doing decent damages that are Smashing and Energy. So, even fighting another less Psi resistant AV, while it will lessen the gap between those 2, I don't expected Illusion to be almost twice as efficient. But that remains to be tested, tho.   

 

What I can see, at this point, is not that there are potential illusion shortcomings, but more that Darkness control is underestimated. The Umbra beast and Haunts combo can do impressive damages on a single target. On a level 41 SO build, the Haunts are not perma, but they recharge fast enough to make a difference. Plus, the -Tohit of all the attacks provide better survivability (if coupled with the right secondaries). 

 

So, yes, I agree that we were all expecting Radiation Emission to be one of the most efficient AV soloing toolsets (RI, EF, AM (for +recharge, + damages and +recovery) and LR) in these tests  and the results here does show that as well.
 

 

Edited March 6, 2022 by LynxNordique

[flair]

Try throwing Grav/Dark and Grav/Rad at it. Grav does decent damage ala Fire and isn't throwing Psi at the king.  Plus the pet will boost your control.

Edited March 7, 2022 by flair

[Carnifax]

On 3/6/2022 at 3:40 PM, Uun said:

Traps/Poison Trap has -1000%, but it only has a 10 sec duration

Pretty sure the gas cloud lives for 30 seconds (CoD lists the self destruct after 30 secs) so if you can keep them in the cloud should be 30 seconds + a lingering 10 second from the debuff to give you 40.

[oedipus_tex]

 

On 2/22/2022 at 10:52 AM, LynxNordique said:

Earth/Time

Well, I heard good stuff about Time. It is supposed to be great in the end game with all its buffs and debuffs. After testing, I came to the conclusion that it’s a poor alternative to /Rad, as /Rad  does everything better except it doesn’t have a -heal. That’s about it. The end cost was as bad as the other builds tested, but it just couldn’t beat or damage the King enough. The -regen powers were recharging fast, but they are way weaker than Howling Twilight or Lingering radiation. At least, it was an Earth controller, so Stoney could stand up to the King, keep the attention and provide safety. But, after 6 minutes and my inspiration tray almost empty, I could barely dent the King’s health bar. It’s a shame because the effects look cool, but it’s really not that great for AV soloing. I won’t bother retry at level 42.  It could also be just me who did not figure out that secondary well enough.

 

 

You're right that Time is not a great AV soloing build. It's an incredible set though. Chrono Shift is an AoE +50% Recharge that affects the caster and can be made perma. I tend to favor it on Defender/Corruptor, where that extra Recharge lends itself to constant nukes and faster access to Aim, but it works well for bringing long recharge controls back online as well. In a team setting +50% Recharge to the whole team is outrageous (basically, it's Speed Boost without the run speed and endurance buff) and will contribute to faster AV defeats by bringing everyone's Build Ups and Aims up faster. In some ways I'd rather have a Time team member than one of the more traditional AV slayers just for that. 

Edited March 7, 2022 by oedipus_tex

[Uun]

1 hour ago, Carnifax said:

Pretty sure the gas cloud lives for 30 seconds (CoD lists the self destruct after 30 secs) so if you can keep them in the cloud should be 30 seconds + a lingering 10 second from the debuff to give you 40.

Thanks. I haven't played Traps since live (and wasn't soloing AVs on my Traps/AR defender).

[EmperorSteele]

3 hours ago, oedipus_tex said:

 

 

 

You're right that Time is not a great AV soloing build. It's an incredible set though. Chrono Shift is an AoE +50% Recharge that affects the caster and can be made perma. I tend to favor it on Defender/Corruptor, where that extra Recharge lends itself to constant nukes and faster access to Aim, but it works well for bringing long recharge controls back online as well. In a team setting +50% Recharge to the whole team is outrageous (basically, it's Speed Boost without the run speed and endurance buff) and will contribute to faster AV defeats by bringing everyone's Build Ups and Aims up faster. In some ways I'd rather have a Time team member than one of the more traditional AV slayers just for that. 

 

I thought Chrono Shift DID buff endurance?

 

Ok, I checked: it DOES, BUT, only 30% instead of 50%. So you will burn through End a bit faster comparatively speaking.

[oedipus_tex]

4 minutes ago, EmperorSteele said:

 

I thought Chrono Shift DID buff endurance?

 

Ok, I checked: it DOES, BUT, only 30% instead of 50%. So you will burn through End a bit faster comparatively speaking.

 

 

The Recovery in Chrono Shift isn't like Speed Boost unfortunately. It lasts 30 seconds, not the full 90 seconds of the Recharge. That's the price of Chrono Shift being allowed to affect the caster. +50% Recharge is 20% shy of a second Hasten. I'll take it. 😄

[LynxNordique]

On 3/7/2022 at 12:22 AM, flair said:

Try throwing Grav/Dark and Grav/Rad at it. Grav does decent damage ala Fire and isn't throwing Psi at the king.  Plus the pet will boost your control.

 

Ok. I might try one of the two later on. Most probably Grav/Dark, since /Dark has a way better survivability (meaning it 's easier, even if it's slower than /Rad). But again, if someone wants to try these before me, please feel free to do so. 🙂 Since I might not try Grav/rad, I would still be curious to see how it performs. Same thing for Fire/Rad; I would still like to see if someone could manage to beat the CWK with that combo.

 

Right now, The Illusion/Dark toon is ready for testing and the Dark/Cold is halfway there. I will test one right after the other, so I'll wait until the Dark/Cold is ready. I'll obviously post the results.  

 

 

[Doomguide2005]

     The best regen debuffs will come from Lingering Radiation (/RadEm), Benumb (/Cold), and AFAIK Poison Trap (/Traps).  I know the first two can be applied permanently with sufficient recharge.  And I believe @Carnifaxis correct about Poison Trap.  Traps certainly has the reputation as an AV killer and while Acid Mortar is definitely solid help pretty sure it's not enough by itself to secure Traps rep as a top AV killer.  Easy enough to test just get an ally with a Power Analyzer.  Traps has the Immobilize to keep the target in the cloud's AoE even if the primary doesn't have/didn't take it (which would be a questionable build decision in terms of tackling AVs, GMs etc.).

     I'd personally look at Benumb first.  It neuters a wide range of things (i.e. 'special') besides the AVs regeneration.  But all three sets should do very well supporting taking down hard targets combining -regen, -resist and other debuffs.

 

     Edit:  /Thermal also has strong regen debuff but for this I'd be iffy about it.  Getting perma-Heat Exhaustion would be very tough outside of a high end IO build especially while not being exemplar to boot.   

     Edit2:  oO brain disconnected Benumb isn't going to be readily perma either at lvl 41.  Puts Lingering Radiation at the top for perma especially with the set containing a self +recharge.

Going to stop now apparently my brain is slow today.

Edited March 8, 2022 by Doomguide2005

[oedipus_tex]

The reason Cold is such a well known AV killer is mainly because of the combo of Heat Loss + Sleet + Benumb. It's really brutal, but as noted above Benumb and Heat Loss both require a lot of IOs to get there.

 

Sleet's -Resist is marked as "no stack from same caster" but it turns out each Sleet you summon is a "unique caster," so you can easily stack the debuff. Most average builds can probably at least work it up to a few stacks. The debuff is a little confusing, it lasts 30 seconds after the previous rain ended, so stacking it is a lot more feasible than it may seem at first. 

 

Note, Thermal's Heat Loss lacks Benumb's -Special, but has better uptimes. It has a Recharge to duration ratio of 120/40, versus Benumb's 120/30. Perma-Benumb is technically possible, because 120/4 = exactly 30 seconds. But you'd need hard capped Recharge to do that. Most people settle for close to perma (~35 Recharge). It's much more feasible to make Heat Exhaustion perma. The reason Thermal doesn't pull significantly ahead is it can't stack -Resist like Cold can. It can still do a decent -22.5% though, the same as Radiation.

 

Another thing to keep in mind though is that some of these powers can miss. Thermal is the most vulnerable to it, a missed Heat Exhaustion or Melt Armor on an AV really hurts it. Radiation is in the low risk category, Cold is somewhere in the middle. Even with perfect Accuracy you will always have a 5% chance to miss with powers that aren't autohit, and in real life scenarios this can haunt you in challenging ways.

[Doomguide2005]

 

1 hour ago, oedipus_tex said:

Note, Thermal's Heat Loss lacks Benumb's -Special, but has better uptimes. It has a Recharge to duration ratio of 120/40, versus Benumb's 120/30. Perma-Benumb is technically possible, because 120/4 = exactly 30 seconds. But you'd need hard capped Recharge to do that. Most people settle for close to perma (~35 Recharge). It's much more feasible to make Heat Exhaustion perma. The reason Thermal doesn't pull significantly ahead is it can't stack -Resist like Cold can. It can still do a decent -22.5% though, the same as Radiation.

     I agree overall with your post but unless my brain is still needing a reset (quite possible in my sleep deprived state) Benumb needs a total 400% recharge (or 300% global + 100% in power) but the cap is 500%.  Very high but not at the actual cap.

 

[LynxNordique]

I haven't done the test yet (with the Dark/Cold), but the problem I forsee with the /Cold is the absence of self heal and the weak self protection (Arctic Fog). Having great -Regen and great - resist is only a part of the equation. The other part is being able to survive the encounter with the AV... With Cold domination, you can give good defense and damage resistance to the pets, but you dont have much to protect yourself.

 

I can understand why Illusion/Cold is a strong combo and probably Earth/Cold could be something to consider, since the pets are getting all the Attention and are either resilient or invincible. But I wouldn't bet that /Cold can transform a lot of other controller primaries into efficient AV soloers. 

 

This is why, at this point, I'm lead to think that Darkness Affinity is probably the best secondary for AV hunting. It's definitly not the fastest, but it's the safest and it allows to fight bigger AVs (the strong ones at higher levels). Of course, Howling Twilight recharge is twice as long as Lingering Radiation. But you and the Dark servant are casting Twilight Grasp, that offers some -Regen that stacks.  Furthermore, those are healing you and the pets. You have obviously a good -resist with Tar patch that can easily be made perma. But the most important part is that you have more than decent shields, with Shadow Fall and Fade, that provide good damage resistance and good defenses, that complement all the -tohit.  As a /Dark controller, in a fight, you and your pets are rarely getting hit. Moreover, if you or your pets do get hit, they barely take significant damages and you will be able to heal yourself or them the next time Twilight Grasp is ready. At level 41, endurance is a problem. However, once fully slotted at level 50, you can make Soul Absorption nearly perma, so the issue is solved...

 

Radiation emission offers only some very decent -tohit with Radiation infection, but that's about it. You then have to either go Darkness Control to have a lot more -tohit to stack with or build you toon like a tank with Power pool shields, Epic shields and lots of set bonuses. I went the later way with my Earth/Rad. She is a faster AV killer, but she gets murdered very fast by a level 53 Avatar of Hamidon. In comparaison my Earth/Dark has very little problem prevailing against that same AV.  

 

Anyway, I will test my Dark/Cold when she will be big enough and I will let you know the results.

Edited March 9, 2022 by LynxNordique