Help me decide!

[Cheddacheese]

Hi all,

 

I was wondering if you guys could help me decide on a new controller. Right now, it is between plant/dark and fire/poison. I would say that I play in teams 90% of the time.

 

I mainly play dps and tanks so I will be going a little bit outside of my comfort zone playing a controller (probably why I went with the highest dps primaries lol), but I think it will keep things fresh and interesting!

 

Thanks for the help!

 

-Chedda

[Six-Six]

/poison. because you get to spit on things.

[Guffnat]

What's your goal? Both builds are fun. Plant/Dark is a lot safer especially early on since Fire/Poison is quite heavy on your endurance before IOs.

[Ringo]

Both combos are great on teams!  /Dark has a strong toolset that's always helpful while /Poison is a bit more specialized as its strength shows the most against hard single targets.

 

Plant/Dark will be easier to level as you get Seeds of Confusion early and never look back.  That combo will be able to engage large groups of minions and lieutenants with little danger and dispatch them quite quickly (for a controller).  You'll most likely need to layer your holds on Bosses, and EBs and AVs will be your undoing (solo) as /Dark will provide mitigation but controller damage without Containment just won't cut it.

 

Fire/Poison is a bit trickier.  You get your poison debuffs early which is nice, and fire has good controls, but you're going to be aiming each powerset at different enemy types, with fire doing most of the work on regular groups of mobs, and poison for cracking the hard targets that can't be controlled.  However at 32 you'll get your imps and they will be a strong contribution against those targets you've debuffed

 

So - smoother leveling with Plant/Dark vs full fire blossom at 32 (34 really for imp slots) with Fire/Poison

[Cheddacheese]

7 hours ago, Guffnat said:

What's your goal? Both builds are fun. Plant/Dark is a lot safer especially early on since Fire/Poison is quite heavy on your endurance before IOs.

Thanks for the feedback all!

I guess in terms of goals I want to run most lower level Tfs and ‘normal’ content during the leveling phase, slowly building up to the end game content. Then eventually (once I feel comfortable with the class) get into the newly added difficult content. (And badging of course because I love shiny stuff)

 

I consider myself to be an experienced player so the challenge of /poison sounds very appealing to me 🙂

 

I like to min-Max my characters so I will definitely take advantage of IOs (also during leveling)

 

One additional question I have is hoe affective the above mentioned builds are in the new ‘hardmode’ content? (I don’t want to feel like dead weight lol)

 

Thanks!

 

-Chedda

[Doomguide2005]

     For HM content it really comes down to team composition.  But for jumping on random teams I'd probably lean towards */Poison for its debuffs and away from Plant/*  as my general understanding is many of the mobs will have some level of status (i.e. Confuse) protection making Seeds much less useful overall (unless you have enough characters with confuses to start overwhelming foes) Bottom line, even in HM, is going to be play what you enjoy as, in general, people tend to put more effort into becoming 'good' at what they love doing.

 

Clarity (I hope):  And by that first line I don't mean team composition needs to be x,y and z but benefit from meeting as a group certain levels of defense, to hit, mez protection, etc..

Edited September 19, 2022 by Doomguide2005
Added to for clarity

[evetsleep]

One thing to consider about plant/* is that it is easy to see it as a one trick pony with Seeds of Confusion (in many ways it is), but Carrion Creepers with some recharge can do stupid damage with procs (feels broken sometimes honestly).  Even on some of my less offense based plant controllers creepers add quite a bit to a steam rollery team..moreso than seeds in many ways.

[Doomguide2005]

     No doubt (why I said lean) but I'm not sure the average PuG comes close to Steam roller vs Relentless 4-star HM especially the ITF quite yet 😜.   Between Shouts of Command and buffed mez protection/resistant foes the ITF while PuGging could get ugly easily for Controllers and their Holds etc. so Creepers and other non-mez get even more important (which tends to push the importance of secondary further as well).  

[Ringo]

It's your Buffs/Debuffs that will carry a team forward in Hardmode.  /Dark and /Poison are debuff sets (dark gets a better heal and a better rez) that should be welcome on any HM team

[Without_Pause]

In terms of playstyle, Plant/dark is far safer. /dark can play at range and has a fat heal. Fire plays in melee due to the damage aura and /poison has no self heal. Oddly enough, I think switching the primaries offer up potentially better pairings. Plant plays at range and has a regen power. Those work well with /poison. Fire is an end hog and /dark has a way to cover that.

Edited September 22, 2022 by Without_Pause

[Psyonico]

Poison plays best in melee post Venomous Gas though.  I agree fire/dark would be better than fire/poison, but you would have 2 PBAoEs with fire/poison.

[Without_Pause]

On 9/22/2022 at 4:23 PM, Psyonico said:

Poison plays best in melee post Venomous Gas though.  I agree fire/dark would be better than fire/poison, but you would have 2 PBAoEs with fire/poison.

Two PBAoEs, no self heal, and no +end. You can proc Health and Stamina to get some HP back, but that's also partly impacting how much end you recover and the two PBAoEs are going to push you to want a lot.

[Ankhammon]

Although I'd think fire/poison would be a hoot to run, it would be tough in HM. That combo will love the melee life and would seem to lose a lot of itself if not in melee. 

Controller version of Poison trap can get tasty with procs running (500+ damage and a 1 second cast time)

 

I say grab a self rez and do it for science!

[Enormotron]

How about plant/poison or fire/dark? Plant would fit poison more thematically.