Frostbite - The Ice/Pain Troller - LF build help

[A3r0h]

Mostly been working on Tankers and Brutes lately, and haven't played much Troller since OG, so would love a little help looking over this build.

I used to play Emp back in OG, but have fallen in love with Pain since coming back to Homecoming. It fits very well with a Troller, with Share Pains ability to self buff dmg via your pets, boosting the somewhat lackluster dmg of the Troller.
I also love Ice Slick, or any variation of it, and used to play both Ice Troller and /Ice Tanker back in OG as well. So felt like marrying the two would be fun.
I tend to always go with Psi pool, for the CC res of Indom Will, and stacking World of Confusion with Arctic Air for 2x confuse auras and a contagious proc seems hilarious.
Also, Psi Tornado with a Force Feedback allows for fast Ice Slicks and a desent AoE.
With proc slotting on top of the occational confuse, the dmg/s is not halfbad.

That being said, it's been hard getting to the defensive goals I tend to aim for, which is usually hover + 45% ranged def, as well as close to 75% s/l res.
With this build I am at hover + 42.75% ranged def and 75% s/l res, but had to make hard sacrifices.

I am curious however, what numbers do you guys aim for, to feel secure in endgame content, on your Troller?

Controller - Ice Control - Pain Domination.mxd

Edited April 29, 2023 by A3r0h

[Wimbochismo]

So I haven't made an Ice Controller here yet, but I have several 'trollers and a Pain Dom. Someone correct me if I'm wrong on any points. In general it looks like you're going to have some issues with endurance (I exclude incarnates when looking at a "base" build).

 

Procs generally don't work as well in toggles and pseudopets. This includes Ice Slick, Enflame, World of Confusion, Arctic Air, and Psionic Tornado. With all the procs you have in yours, they'll definitely be doing work but I feel like you could get more benefits going for straight bonuses. Contagious Confusion proc in AA is still valuable. But CoD says the confusion duration for the mag3 is ~3.75 secs - AA is screaming for end reduction and confusion duration.

 

It looks like the most proccable powers in cold are Cold Snap, Flash Freeze, Block of Ice and maybe Frost Bite. The chance of build up in Block of Ice is a low chance and with it slotted for recharge and Agility alpha it's never going to go off.

 

I believe cold's control comes in the form of layering soft controls. Open with Flash Freeze, Cold Snap or both ? to then get in and Ice Slick with AA for soft control. Chillblain is good single target damage but this looks more like an aoe dmg/control build. It really needs Frostbite to set up aoe containment, confusion doesn't count towards containment.

 

World of Confusion requires accuracy to land its confusion, Anguishing Cry -def helps a bit.

 

I'm not sure how set you are on the Sorcery pool. It isn't doing a ton for you. Pain already has great heals, so Spirit Ward is unnecessary. Enflame is good aoe dmg but replacing it with a procced Cold Snap may be comparable.

 

Share Pain YMMV. Damage on a 'troller is already anemic, but a 25% dmg boost isn't huge when most of your dmg is procs. You're also locked out of being healed for 15 seconds, with soft controls you're going to still be taking some hits.

 

Soothing Aura is actually very nice on Pain. You can put a Numina +regen/rec in it and it will provide that bonus to teammates inside of it. Otherwise Pain is all about perma World of Pain and Anguishing Cry. Anguishing Cry could really use a Shield Breaker set or something, it needs accuracy as well!

 

Hopefully this helps.

Edited April 30, 2023 by Wimbochismo

[Doomguide2005]

On 4/29/2023 at 11:42 AM, A3r0h said:

I am curious however, what numbers do you guys aim for, to feel secure in endgame content, on your Troller?

Controller - Ice Control - Pain Domination.mxd 5.13 kB · 8 downloads

Solo or team (to feel secure in endgame) and notoriety setting?  For me while teaming I'm quite secure using my controls and developing high recharge to get said controls up asap.  The larger the team the more comfortable I am with controls, my pet(s) plus inspires as needed for mitigation.  Solo I become more concerned with some defense and or resistance but again stunned, held, or otherwise mezzed foes don't fight back.  This would be doubly true of a Controller with a strong heal(s) in it's secondary, such as Pain,  as any damage that does get through is more readily dealt with.  All this also assumes I'm teaming in normal content.  On my Earth/Storm/Stone, for example, I barely care about defense and resistance at all.  Any i have is almost incidental as between patches/controls used from total cover, Rocky (who taunts), Storm's offensive output (Tornado, Lightning Storm, etc), and stealthiness to enable first strike (Stalagmites -> Thunderclap -> Fissure) as well as scouting the spawn for troublesome foes -> sappers, surgeons, etc., who needs defense.  And when I do find a ton of aggro landing on my head well that's what my inspires are for.

 

     That said I'll add in what I can that won't strongly interfere with the main goal of gaining global recharge.

[A3r0h]

Alright, so I should have clarified. The "endgame" would be at +3 (+4 if you count t4 incarnate), think the build in Mids is already set to +3. I like running hard content, and I hate dying, so I tend to build on the defensive side in general.

As for incarnates, I count them, as the character is already 50 and farming for the different bonuses. I am only interested in the flushed out builds, not a base build, as I am passed that point. So don't mind the end issues at lower levels, Ageless fixes that right up.
I am also aware that frankenslotting is less effective on this build, than it would be on eg. a blaster set, but as I can get very near the caps without slotting normal sets, I prefer the procs, to squeeze every bit of dmg out of it. Inf is no real issue, so also not looking for a cheaper build. :))
The desiding factor is really what goals people set, to round out a Troller build.

My main interest here, is in the defensive values people aim for, to survive. Like I said, I havent played Troller for quite a while, so I cannot really remember what used to be the goals. I know that hover + 45% ranged def used to be one, but I am unsure if that is enough in the current meta? Or if new or other values have been added.

What tends to be your build priority?

 

 

@Doomguide2005 so, am I correct in understanding, that your build philosophy is purely that of global recharge, and then having def and res be secondary to that? Making the active control your primary defense, your reactive heals your secondary, and then def and res stats your third? :))

Aside from Ice Slick, Ice does not offer massive control, as both the confuse auras are only mag2, do you reckon that your build philosophy would work for Ice as well then? Cause that has been my reluctance to fully commit to that path. There will often be mobs slightly outside Slick range that will take a go at you, and it feels like I pick up more random dmg spikes on Ice than on my other Trollers. Have a bunch of Trollers around lvl 35ish btw.

Oh, and also, I remember we used to go Super Speed + Stealth for full stealth, allowing the CC setup at the start of each fight, or pre CC'ing before the group finished that last pack. I usually slot a +stealth enhc in Sprint or such, but would that still need to be stacked with somethign like SS to give full Stealth?

 

Thanks for the feedback so far. :))

 

 

Edited May 1, 2023 by A3r0h

[Doomguide2005]

@A3r0h

     I would say high global recharge is one form of mitigation and I find it typically sufficient on most of my Controllers with mid to larger sized teams in normal content at +3 or +4×8.  But I'd also say the strongest mitigation comes from layering as many forms of mitigation as possible.  If you are looking to solo hard stuff like +4 AVs, run duo's/trio's or solo of +4/×8 endgame TF's then yes you'll want high if not soft-capped defenses, strong resistances as if you can't survive all the dps in the world isn't going to get you through.

    It's been a long time since I ran an Ice Controller but paired with Pain I can definitely see a strong desire to build substantial defense.  Ice itself isn't exactly high damage and Pain would love that high recharge to be most effective as a buff/debuff set (much like Empathy).

     I haven't been able to look at your build yet (on my phone not computer).  I would say I'd ideally want to push the defense that last 3% or give up some to gain recharge.  I'd consider dropping to around 33 to 35% so you're about one purple from capping.  I also can't see how much of that 42.75% is from your incarnate boost.  Like @WimbochismoI generally build without consideration of my incarnate choices where it concerns defense, end usage and recovery, accuracy, etc..  I do far too much exemplar play to not be self sufficient without incarnates abilities.

[Wimbochismo]

@A3r0h

 

No probs, I see what you're aiming for, then. 

 

I don't have a specific priority for Controller's, it's more a sliding scale. I'd say the first thing I'd sacrifice is defense for recharge like @Doomguide2005. For Controller's I aim for the typical 45 of my chosen defense. I also build on the cheap with only 1 or 2 purps. I usually overslot for endurance because in lots of cases the end cost on abilities is high and I'm usually proccing. It's the best way to get dmg out of a 'troller. I managed to get like 27 dmg procs in a 'troller build and still hit 45 defense. If I can go with a resist based epic paired with ranged defense it's ideal. That gives you good s/l resist + whatever else and aoe/single dmg paired with containment. I always set my accuracy at +4. Perma hasten if at all possible, cause moar procs.

 

Like Doom again, if you can't get 45 then try to get around 35. Just know to stay on top of/slot your control's as a form of mitigation, especially against an alpha. Most sets have a strong shorter cooldown lockdown like Earth you can Stalagmite's, Symph Confounding Chant etc. Maybe sleep here if you had to? Then lastly you leverage that defensive Secondary like crazy.

 

In your case you're getting perma World of Pain. Like in your build, you can easily achieve 75 s/l and a decent blanket of resist across the board. This is great because Ice has soft control's that are probably letting through dmg here and there. It means you probably won't get chunked down very hard. To that end, Soothing Aura if you pick it is providing constant passive healing. If you get hit too hard you have a PBAoE heal.

 

I think that's your best goal-post unless you go with pure sets. Pure set bonus Controller's usually end up dropping dmg (procs) in exchange for all those other considerations. But this would let you more easily reach those other defense/recharge goals. You just might end up with a no damage 'troller, which isn't a bad thing either.

[A3r0h]

@Doomguide2005@Wimbochismo
That is brilliant advice, and is very much along the lines of what I was looking for. Appreciate it.

On a sidenote though, Pain doesnt benefit as much from recharge as Emp does. The pain dmg buffs don't stack like Fort, so as long as you just get perma WoP, you are fine. Same with Ice, mostly you just want the Patch to be around 15-18sec CD, so you can layer them. Being able to stick the -res on them is neat, but for anything fast-moving, that's not really doable, so I tend to aim for just perma at sub 30 secs, so it is up all the time for harder targets. :))

And I agree, Ice does seem to let more dmg through as it relies more on soft CCs like KD, so my idea was to at the very least hit hover + 45% ranged, to minimize the spikes, allowing the heals to deal with the random dips in HP. I did pick dmg oriented Incarnates to try and max the dmg potential, but it might be a smoother ride to choose something that ups overall res, so the spikes are more managable.