Total Noob question : how does one do damage as a Controller ?

[Without_Pause]

11 hours ago, UltraAlt said:

Oh, and why aren't you teaming up?

Soloing is okay sometimes, but the glory and true power of this game is in teaming.

Some of us like the challenge. I became a better player when I had to learn how to solo mobs versus leaning on teammates to help blow through content. I find sometimes I want to team because my build needs an audience.

[Carnifax]

12 hours ago, UltraAlt said:

 

Oh, and why aren't you teaming up?

Soloing is okay sometimes, but the glory and true power of this game is in teaming

Because most of the servers are pretty quiet nowadays, especially if youre on Reunion.

[UltraAlt]

21 hours ago, Without_Pause said:

I became a better player when I had to learn how to solo mobs versus leaning on teammates to help blow through content. 

 

I replied to @ZEdglord and not one of your posts.

 

You are being defensive about soloing?

 

City of Heroes is based on teaming up and people shouldn't be shy about doing it.

Archetype synergy goes a long way.

It is how the game was designed.

 

You aren't "leaning on teammates". The only time you are "leaning on teammates" is when you are doorsitting or similar non-participatory game play.

This is the mentality that Defenders are useless because their main power is to heal, buff, and debuff so that other people can keep doing damage, do more damage, stop the enemies from doing more damage, and make them more vulnerable to damage.

 

21 hours ago, Without_Pause said:

Some of us like the challenge.

 

To each their own type of challenge.

If you are having problems soloing - like the poster of this thread - then teaming up IS a viable solution.

You doesn't mean "you" personally.

 

21 hours ago, Without_Pause said:

I find sometimes I want to team because my build needs an audience.

 

I'm never gaming to watch someone else show off their "build".

I'm gaming to enjoy the playing the game.

 

I'm not sure who you think your "audience" is that is paying attention to your "build". I guess you must be streaming or something.

If you are streaming, then why would you need a team to show of your "build"?

[UltraAlt]

20 hours ago, Carnifax said:

Because most of the servers are pretty quiet nowadays, especially if youre on Reunion.

 

Yep. Reunion is pretty quiet. I agree.

I still log in over there sometimes, try to get something going, or join a team.

 

If you yell out that you are doing something, you might be surprised how often people will respond.

A large majority of players want to team (and not to team so that they can show-off) but they don't want to lead.

At the same time, it's ironic how many players will try to take over a team (to make you pass the star to them or someone else on the team) once you have taken the time to recruit.

If you are recruiting for a team, do what you want to do and the team follows you. They were too lazy to recruit, and you took the effort to form the team. You deserve credit for that ... and, after a while, you will see the number of people that try to get you to give up the star are very few and no big loss if they leave the team.

 

Lot of us have enough alts that we like to switch up and play things at different levels, like to help, and/or just like teaming up.

[Without_Pause]

30 minutes ago, UltraAlt said:

 

I replied to @ZEdglord and not one of your posts.

If you want a two way conversation, I suggest PMs.

 

As for the rest.

[DoctorDitko]

Controllers are low damage output, especially at the lower levels.

 

Containment is essential! Get in the habit of firing off a control before you go for the damage. It's not quite double, but near enough.

 

P2W is your friend here. In addition to the procs, grab all the freebie damage powers you can eat. Blackwand and Nemesis lollipop are both great, especially if your origin matches, and the lollipop does KB! Don't forget the debuffs: Envenomed Dagger costs inf, but has excellent debuffage. Reducing a target's Resistance by 50% is close to doubling your own damage.

 

Eat your candy. The Inspirations drop for a reason, and you don't have room for many. Munch them like a '70s stoner in a 7-11.

 

And... Sorcery. It has a special synergy with Control sets. Time things right, and you can do almost triple damage, with an Arcane Empowered, Contained, Arcane Bolt. It is a thing of beauty. Add some good debuffs, and you can mow 'em down with the best of them.

 

Enjoy my favorite AT, a little patience and it may become yours, too!

Good hunting!

[ZEdglord]

On 4/27/2022 at 5:18 AM, UltraAlt said:

 

I'm being lazy and not reading through all the posts.

Controller's special power is Containment. When you have Containment on a target, your other primary power do additional damage.

 

I think all ranged characters that are soloing should pull and not rush in.

You can also get teleport target so you can pull one at a distance (and at a time) until the mob is a more manageable size.

 

walls have 100% resistance and defense, so you want to immobilize a bunch at once, try to be in a position so only a couple can target you once they are immobilized.

 

fall back/run as necessary.

 

Phantom Army is your damage.

 

Oh, and why aren't you teaming up?

Soloing is okay sometimes, but the glory and true power of this game is in teaming.

Thank you for the run down.
I don't team up because I have absolutely no interesting in teaming up. That's about it really.

[ZEdglord]

On 4/29/2022 at 6:53 AM, DoctorDitko said:

Controllers are low damage output, especially at the lower levels.

 

Containment is essential! Get in the habit of firing off a control before you go for the damage. It's not quite double, but near enough.

 

P2W is your friend here. In addition to the procs, grab all the freebie damage powers you can eat. Blackwand and Nemesis lollipop are both great, especially if your origin matches, and the lollipop does KB! Don't forget the debuffs: Envenomed Dagger costs inf, but has excellent debuffage. Reducing a target's Resistance by 50% is close to doubling your own damage.

 

Eat your candy. The Inspirations drop for a reason, and you don't have room for many. Munch them like a '70s stoner in a 7-11.

 

And... Sorcery. It has a special synergy with Control sets. Time things right, and you can do almost triple damage, with an Arcane Empowered, Contained, Arcane Bolt. It is a thing of beauty. Add some good debuffs, and you can mow 'em down with the best of them.

 

Enjoy my favorite AT, a little patience and it may become yours, too!

Good hunting!

Thanks, I have played a bit more and I've started to grasp how containement works and how it effectively gives damage increases. This whole post helped me a lot, honestly.

[UltraAlt]

1 hour ago, ZEdglord said:

I don't team up because I have absolutely no interesting in teaming up.

 

Oh, well. I think you are missing out on the most fun in the game, but I can understand that gaming in general is focused on solo play.

[Bill Z Bubba]

On 4/28/2022 at 8:55 AM, UltraAlt said:

If you are having problems soloing - like the poster of this thread - then teaming up IS a viable solution.

 

If you're having difficulty boiling water, painting your house is a viable solution.

[Rejolt]

On 4/22/2022 at 12:51 PM, oedipus_tex said:

It's going to depend a lot on the sets involved.

 

Gravity is probably the smoothest ride. Lift does extremely good damage for a Controller. Propel does decent, not outstanding, damage. I think level 2 Gravity Controllers may have the highest single target DPA of any character in that level range just because of how hard Lift hits with Containment.

 

Fire and Mind Controllers both have very fast casting single target holds that can be procced out for good damage in the ~250 DPA range.

 

Plant Control's Roots power does double the damage of the other AoE immobilizes. It's actually as good as a Defender's Explosive Blast, but with double the area of effect and half the recharge.  Carrion Creepers is a proc monster that delivers substantial damage.

 

Fire Control's Hot Feet does about the same damage of a free Fireball cast every 10 seconds. 

 

Dark Control takes -ToHit sets, which makes all of the powers very procc'able.

 

 

On the secondary side, a few sets stand out for Damage. Kinetics, of course. Also Trick Arrow and Storm. More subtly, Nature provides a big +Damage boost. Cold Domination can proc out Infrigidate.  

 

One trap to avoid: You probably want to skip the Controller single target blast available in most APPs. They are mostly not very good. If you need an additional single target blast, you're often better off taking the T1 immobilize power, which typically recharge in 4 seconds, and are available from level 1.  

I know this is late posting but just echoing this - The DPA of say Energy Blast is less than most trollers ST  Immobilize. You even get more procs to choose from (Lethal, Hold and the regular ranged sets on top).

[Bill Z Bubba]

4 hours ago, ZEdglord said:

I don't team up because I have absolutely no interesting in teaming up. That's about it really.

 

Back before the snap, I soloed 95% of the time. I tend to team more now because I'm a member of a regular group of players. Technically, I'm not part of their SGs as I have my own that all my characters belong to so that I have my own base but I'm on their Discord channel and at 9:30 EST on any given night, I can expect that I'll be playing with them.

 

This has allowed me to play a lot of the archetypes that I generally avoided in the old days because it made it easy to do so.

 

But it hasn't changed a fundamental fact of this game: The melee ATs can solo and do so well. The others suck at it. This doesn't mean it can't be done. My fire/dark controller can solo at +4/x8 against many enemy groups but it's slow as a turtle on quaaludes compared to how my melee characters rip through most everything.

 

There are going to be exceptions to the rule. You will find some players that have managed to turn their squishy into something miraculous but it doesn't happen until incarnates are in place after 50 or if they're heavily leaning on the P2W vendor cheats.

 

I'm not trying to sway you away from turning your controller into a soloing god. You can do it if you decide to and utilize ALL the tools available to us in this new CoH world. I'm only attempting to set expectations properly.

[PeregrineFalcon]

1 hour ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

If you're having difficulty boiling water, painting your house is a viable solution.

That's a Faulty Analogy, and you know that.

 

If you're having difficulty boiling water, asking someone to help you IS a viable solution.

[Bill Z Bubba]

1 minute ago, PeregrineFalcon said:

That's a Faulty Analogy, and you know that.

 

If you're having difficulty boiling water, asking someone to help you IS a viable solution.

 

The OP is asking for help SOLOING. Telling him to team is the most worthless possible assistance.

Edited May 4, 2022 by Bill Z Bubba

[Bill Z Bubba]

And I state what I did in the last post as a guy who just last night got so fed up with how slowly my dark/time controller was getting through a mission that I fired up my 2nd account, brought in my fire/nrg tank and marveled at how quickly he decimated max diff CoT in comparison.

[PeregrineFalcon]

4 minutes ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

The OP is asking for help SOLOING. Telling him to team is the most worthless possible assistance.

And... I got nothing. You're right and I was wrong. I should have remembered the context.

[arcane]

1 hour ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

 

 

 

But it hasn't changed a fundamental fact of this game: The melee ATs can solo and do so well. I personally suck at it with the other ATs.

Fixed a post

[Bill Z Bubba]

20 minutes ago, arcane said:

Fixed a post

 

You fixed nothing. Just trolling as usual.

 

Edit: No, really. Put up or shut up. Pick a mission. Put your squishy's time against my main's with zero faceplants. Let's go.

Edited May 4, 2022 by Bill Z Bubba

[Bill Z Bubba]

Well, @arcane?

 

[arcane]

Sorry bub, I’ve learned not to take the bait of your insults nor take seriously your completely arbitrary standards/metrics. Considering the last time I responded to your typical insults, I was banned, and, well, as for your arbitrary standards and metrics, they literally mean nothing to either me or, I reckon, probably 99% of the people here.

 

If me refusing to provide a level of evidence that would hold up on some non-existent Paragon City court of law equates to you feeling that you are right/correct, then congratulations, you are right/correct. Ofc me refusing to waste time on your dumb games doesn’t actually logically equate to anything, but I’ll let you have your moment.
 

At the end of the day I know what sucks and does not suck for me. It sucks that you can’t seem to play most of the game’s AT’s in a way that doesn’t suck to you, so sorry about that. I’ll keep playing all AT’s effectively and I’ll keep avoiding your arbitrary limiting standards.

 

Now please continue with your next post about how smug you feel about being right, you’ve earned it buddy.

Edited May 4, 2022 by arcane

[Bill Z Bubba]

1 minute ago, arcane said:

Considering the last time I responded to your typical insults, I was banned,

 

There's probably a reason for that.

 

2 minutes ago, arcane said:

I’ll keep playing all AT’s effectively

 

Prove it.

[arcane]

Just now, Bill Z Bubba said:

 

There's probably a reason for that.

 

 

Prove it.

Yeah, I lost my temper at one of your insults.

 

As for “prove it”, by whose standards? Are you willing to adopt every arbitrary standard I can think of? I get that you insist everyone here must play exactly how you play, but unfortunately almost no one does, pal.

[biostem]

On 4/22/2022 at 11:38 AM, ZEdglord said:

I was wondering how does one actually get anything done solo as a Controller.

Outside of illusion, the others sets, AFAIK, all have both a single-target and AoE immobilize.  Both have relatively short recharges and can actually deal good damage.  Plus, they setup containment.  Slot them for damage and you'd be surprised how effective they can be.  Arcane bolt can actually be a pretty good supplement as well.

[Bill Z Bubba]

5 minutes ago, arcane said:

Yeah, I lost my temper at one of your insults.

 

As for “prove it”, by whose standards? Are you willing to adopt every arbitrary standard I can think of? I get that you insist everyone here must play exactly how you play, but unfortunately almost no one does, pal.

 

Pick a standard. I'm curious as to what you'd come up with that would in some way show the superiority of a squishy soloing over a meleer.

[Troo]

6 minutes ago, arcane said:

I get that you insist everyone here must play exactly how you play, but unfortunately almost no one does, pal.

 

that 3 power attack chain while taking very few hits is effective. a bit boring to me, but effective.