Knockback King, who is he?

[oedipus_tex]

Interestingly, the most reliable, fast casting AoE knock-blast is probably in a set you don't expect: Umbral Torrent in the Dark Blast set. It animates in 1.05 seconds, recharges in 15 (about 4 seconds on a top end build), and has an excellent (for a cone) 80ft range. If you combine Dark Blast with Energy Manipulation, you can extend this range to 126 feet with Boost Range and the knockback can actually be a really effective solo technique. The main limitation is the same one that exists in all cones, the 10 target cap. But that's true of cones in Energy and Dual Pistols too, and neither of those sets have a frequently up power with 100% chance to knock.

 

 

Anyway, I happened to be on the test server tonight and had a few minutes to demo the Grav/Storm/Leviathan build posted above. Here it is in a +4/x8 Council mission. I unfortunately forgot to turn bosses on but you can get the idea. I probably could have played more strategically, you can see that while the enemies aren't really threatening me, I'm struggling to take them out because of so much scatter. It's fun to play, tho. 🙂 I first tried this with Tornado turned on, I turned it off for the second run though because the Repel/KB was cutting so deeply into kill rate.

 

 

 

Edited March 8, 2022 by oedipus_tex

[The_Warpact]

@oedipus_tex

 

Lmfao...

So many good parts of that video. The minion getting sucked up in the Tornado then blasted by lightning in the first corner. 

Everything flying all over the place, on a ranged, dom, troller team this would stand out as the bulldozer. I created Kaos King last night, can hardly wait till start lvling him.

[Cancrusher]

2 hours ago, The_Warpact said:

@oedipus_tex

 

Lmfao...

So many good parts of that video. The minion getting sucked up in the Tornado then blasted by lightning in the first corner. 

Everything flying all over the place, on a ranged, dom, troller team this would stand out as the bulldozer. I created Kaos King last night, can hardly wait till start lvling him.

 

Yeah, man- that is just brutal!  Absolute, apocalyptic, chaos!  Also an example of why you don't want to piss of Storm from the X-men.  😁

[PeregrineFalcon]

Man, I wish I'd seen this thread earlier. My only Controller is Grav/Storm. And let me tell you that it's very fun to play.

 

Try taking Teleport Target from the teleportation power pool. Teleport your Singularity right into the enemy mob. Then drop Freezing Rain on top of that. Then drop Tornado on top of that. Then drink a cup of coffee and watch the fun.

 

Tornado will knock them away and then Singularity will pull them back in. Between the two of them they'll be constantly tossing the enemies around like salad. To make it even funnier slot so KB > KD in Singularity, but not in Tornado. That just makes it worse for them. Keeps the enemies in a smaller group and then start getting thrown up into the air.

 

 

[The_Warpact]

1 hour ago, PeregrineFalcon said:

Man, I wish I'd seen this thread earlier. My only Controller is Grav/Storm. And let me tell you that it's very fun to play.

 

Try taking Teleport Target from the teleportation power pool. Teleport your Singularity right into the enemy mob. Then drop Freezing Rain on top of that. Then drop Tornado on top of that. Then drink a cup of coffee and watch the fun.

 

Tornado will knock them away and then Singularity will pull them back in. Between the two of them they'll be constantly tossing the enemies around like salad. To make it even funnier slot so KB > KD in Singularity, but not in Tornado. That just makes it worse for them. Keeps the enemies in a smaller group and then start getting thrown up into the air.

 

 

I'm going to call that the Bukk@ke Maneuver.

 

 

 

 

🤣 🤣 🤣 

[Uun]

Wormhole a spawn, drop Dimension Shift on them, then spawn Freezing Rain, Tornado and Lightning Storm inside the Dimension Shift bubble. It's a regular popcorn popper.

[oedipus_tex]

I thought you might like to see what difference slotting knockback to knockdown makes in a set like this, so I filmed a separate video. It's possible that I was a little more comfortable with the character during the second vid and that contributed; however you can also see I got to the same spot on the map about 2 min faster. I didn't bother 'fixing' the overall build, just slotted kb to kd and accepted the loss in Ranged defense, but still I think the second build is stronger (and less likely to get the boot from trams).

 

By all means go all out with the knockback build for fun. 🙂 Don't forget you can make a badass contributor with some more control to your knock, though. 🙂

 

 

 

[The_Warpact]

@oedipus_tex

 

Yeah, you moved alot quicker through that. I'll take the KB 😉.

[The_Warpact]

So I just unlocked Singy we ran a Barracuda last night and had it cranked up. 2 broots and lil ole me.

I found that helping the brutes by putting the stragglers into a nice pile and Wormhole>Crushing Field >Freezing Rain>Thunderclap really helped decimate the mobs and the broots worked on the hard targets.

 

Having the horde of Coralax at the end was easy, and spinning around the perimeter of the mob using propel and gale to keep everyone in an orderly pile was beneficial to the melee folks.

 

Stacking holds and yellow insps neutered Calastyx while the broots punched in his giblets. 

Leviathan on the other hand wasn't too good, I dealt with the incoming Coralax while the broots gave that Levi a black eye.

 

Overall, a great experience couple times I pulled aggro and suffered for it.

The build overall is very viable very team oriented if played correctly. There is alot to do to be successful and to me its a busy build.

So for lazy button mashers its not for you, and for the people hating on KB I'm going to chalk it up to ignorance on your part.

I can really see the charm of the KB>KD proc but you're not putting the mobs where you want them and not benefitting the team by not piling them up in a kill box.

 

I think when I get to 50 I might write a guide on this combo thats how much I like it. Off beat frowned upon sets do have a place they just take some work and having tactics for multiple situations really helps out.