Maximizing my Grav/Time/Primal Controller

[JulioThom33_2]

This is my first stab at what I consider to be a "Real" Controller (Grav/Time/Primal). I had an Ill/Rad, but that played more like the melee characters I usually use.

 

Boxing/Tough/Weave has been burned into my brain as essential since Live. I've never made a character without it. Yet, it seems like THIS character really might not need it. I'd like some assistance to see how I can better build to this character's strengths.

 

This is my leveling build. I just hit 40. I'd like to figure out a way to:

 

1. Cap to Ranged Defense without PB.

2. Come close enough to Cap to S/L or M that 1-slotted Time's Juncture effectively caps me.

3. Add 1 more AoE for damage. I can lock up a ton of people and spam Distortion and Crushing Field to melt them, but 1 more good AoE would make things a lot easier.

 

I know once I get Power Boost I'll be over cap to everything except Toxic. If I need to dump Fighting to do so, so be it. But I'd love to keep it if I could.

 

I'd also love Incarnate advice. Given the endurance I use, I'm guessing Cardiac is a given. Any other advice would be appreciated.

 

View This Build In MRB

 

Gravemetric Shear - Controller (Gravity Control - Time Manipulation).mbd

[egoprovince]

I main earth/time/earth and while i don't max any defense, I have near defense cap and can sustain myself. From experience I can tell you that Fighting is commonly taken but often can be skipped in favor of more interesting choices.

 

Capped range defense is handy to mitigate combat when you have all the attention. In a team scenario I launch my attack just behind the melee and I'm quite safe.

 

With all these numbers you could test as I have, take yourself into some fights and compare performance.

 

I rolled an earth/storm/fire that had nothing near cap defense but made such a mess decimating that I could and can farm with relative impunity.

[Zect]

17 hours ago, JulioThom33_2 said:

Boxing/Tough/Weave has been burned into my brain as essential since Live. I've never made a character without it. Yet, it seems like THIS character really might not need it. I'd like some assistance to see how I can better build to this character's strengths.

 

You don't need boxing/tough/weave on a primal epic troller because primal trollers can softcap melee/range/aoe without weave.

 

Troller power boost, unlike fenders/corrs, costs 3 powers. Taking another 3 on top of that means you have spent 6/24, or a quarter of all powers to softcap. You're getting ripped off!

 

17 hours ago, JulioThom33_2 said:

1. Cap to Ranged Defense without PB.

 

Why do you want to take PB and then not use it? PB means Power Boost. It does not mean Power For Another Day.

 

PB on a troller increases farsight's defense bonus by +11.5% defense to all positions. That is not a small amount of defense to make up from set bonuses. Conversely, if you do softcap without PB that means a costly investment that is superfluous when you do have PB.

 

If you exemplar and no longer have PB then use your controls and debuffs. Or, you know, eat a small purple, or use dual builds.

 

18 hours ago, JulioThom33_2 said:

2. Come close enough to Cap to S/L or M that 1-slotted Time's Juncture effectively caps me.

 

Trivial. As mentioned, power boost can be thought of as +11.5% def to all as long as we remember to use it every time we refresh farsight. This means we are capped when we see 33.5% def in mids with power boost OFF.

 

ED-capped Maneuvers, ED-capped Farsight, either hover or CJ with an lotg in it, and the two +3% uniques bring us to 27.4% def to all. This means we only need about +6.1% def to cap. TJ is 15% base and a useful shorthand for the purple patch is that against +4's your powers are a little under half as effective. So, that's -7.5% enemy tohit. We're already done!

 

Furthermore, controllers easily get +5% ranged def from their ATIO. So aoe def is really the only sticking point. The most slot-efficient source of aoe def in the game is frozen blast, the winter taoe set. That's good news because you then say:

 

18 hours ago, JulioThom33_2 said:

3. Add 1 more AoE for damage. I can lock up a ton of people and spam Distortion and Crushing Field to melt them, but 1 more good AoE would make things a lot easier.

 

Good. You should take energy torrent. Even though the description says otherwise, on controllers it does KD instead of KB. It will add valuable aoe damage and soft control, and it is also an excellent procbombing power - far better than crushing field, or distortion field for that matter, at the cost of being available later. (Controller aoe immobs are pretty bad as attacks, even procced-out, due to the low base recharge and large area.) Incidentally, if you can only afford to proc-bomb one power, it should be energy torrent, putting the frozen blast in crushing field instead. Energy torrent with 4 damage procs and a 53 nucleolus does nearly 300 damage on average.

 

The last grav/time/primal thread got extremely badly-designed examples in response. Here is a much better template than the Bionic Flea build you based yours on, and I haven't even touched the alpha or spent all the slots. This is a perma-chronoshift build that's softcapped to range and aoe with PB, and slightly undercapped to melee:

 

 

I'm not providing a build link. I want you to look at this picture, enter the IO's one by one yourself, look at how the enhancement values are changing, and think about their effect and whether they are worth it. (That's a Conduit in chronoshift, Membranes in farsight, and a +5 D/E in maneuvers, by the way.)

 

Completing the build is left as an exercise for the reader. Try:

• Adding up to two more procbombing powers.
• Adding a different power pool; fold space, tactics, CJ, rune of protection, something for concept - the possibilities are endless.
• Proccing out crushing field, and getting aoe defense from somewhere else. This is slot-intensive, and I do not recommend it, but the option is there. Some ways to add aoe def include 4x shield breaker (6x would add melee def as well), tactics with 6x gaussians (also adds melee def, make sure to cut out some ranged def to regain some slot-efficiency). 5-6x lockdown, 6x ice mistal's in TJ, CJ, etc.

Whatever you choose, you should get over your mental block of not using powerboost. On an endgame high-rech build like the one I have demonstrated, power boost has nearly 50% uptime and is available every spawn. You can power boost to get a much stronger heal from chronoshift or temporal healing, you can power boost to increase your control duration far more than getting measely 4% mez bonuses from 2x entomb. Power boost increases the tohit buff from Farsight which is beneficial because 1) we are using procbombed attacks with little/no acc slotting and 2) controllers do not have access to aim. You don't want to encounter enemies with defense buffs, whiff your slowed response (which should be taken at 28 btw) and have nothing else in response.

 

Finally, you do not need the Soulbound Allegiance proc in singularity. It has only 2 attacks, crush and lift, and doesn't have containment. The purpose of singularity is to control and group up mobs, not to do damage. You'll get far better returns ensuring your own powers are competently slotted.

[Uun]

@Zect has very good advise. Another option is to slot Chrono Shift with two 50+5 recharge IOs, then use Power Boost on Chrono Shift as well. (I typically recycle Chrono Shift and Farsight at the same time.)

[JulioThom33_2]

On 5/11/2023 at 9:30 AM, Zect said:

...Good. You should take energy torrent. Even though the description says otherwise, on controllers it does KD instead of KB. It will add valuable aoe damage and soft control, and it is also an excellent procbombing power - far better than crushing field, or distortion field for that matter, at the cost of being available later.

 

...Completing the build is left as an exercise for the reader. Try:

• Adding up to two more procbombing powers.
• Adding a different power pool; fold space, tactics, CJ, rune of protection, something for concept - the possibilities are endless.
• Proccing out crushing field, and getting aoe defense from somewhere else. This is slot-intensive, and I do not recommend it, but the option is there. Some ways to add aoe def include 4x shield breaker (6x would add melee def as well), tactics with 6x gaussians (also adds melee def, make sure to cut out some ranged def to regain some slot-efficiency). 5-6x lockdown, 6x ice mistal's in TJ, CJ, etc

 

...Finally, you do not need the Soulbound Allegiance proc in singularity. It has only 2 attacks, crush and lift, and doesn't have containment. The purpose of singularity is to control and group up mobs, not to do damage. You'll get far better returns ensuring your own powers are competently slotted.

 

These 3 pieces of advice alone made this worthwhile! I'm only at 42, and I am resisting the urge to PL this toon to 50, but I'm getting anxious!

 

I'll get over myself about Power Boost! I'll take your advice and just lock more stuff down until I get to 44 and respec. I have decent amount of INF (800 mill), so I'll splurge on the Winter Set.

 

Never heard of the Conduit set. I'l look for it.

 

So, taking your advice, I'll:

 

1. Proc out Gravity Distortion

2. 6-Slot Crushing Field with Winter Set

3. Proc Out Distortion Field With 4 Damage and 2 Overpowering (Energy Font procs well in it from what I see)

4. Proc Energy Torrent with 1 ACC/4 Procs, to switch to a Nucleolus at 50.

5. Drop Temporal Selection for TJ. 

6. Slot Chrono and Temporal Mending per your advice.

 

I'm looking forward to seeing how this improves things! 

 

 

Edited May 13, 2023 by JulioThom33_2

[stryve]

Chiming in on the different power pools front, Teleport Target is a great one-slot utility power for getting Singularity where you want it to be.  I never did manage to fit it into my own Grav/Time/Primal, but it works really well on my Grav/Kin/Psi.

 

Teleport Target Singularity into position, Wormhole a group onto Singularity, then cycle your rotation into the fountain 'o mobs until they stop flopping.  Just make sure both Wormhole and Singularity have  KB-KD enhancements so mobs stay piled up instead of being tossed everywhere. Also be aware that the teleport Mag on Wormhole isn't high enough to effect a lot of +3/4 enemies, and the only way I know to get around that is an Ultimate Inspiration.