Seems to me like /Time is a lot better than /FF

[Sykar]

Alright so with a Grav/Time at 50 and a MC/FF at 34 I am a little underwhelmed with FF from a practical perspective, even though I like FF thematically.

I understand that FF is more defensive oriented than Time but I do not see what FF does better than Time apart from Repulsion Field. Getting defense up via Farsight is not as good as the defense buffs + Dispersion Bubble but that gets easily equalized by the fact that many builds can hit soft caps or close to even without team buffs plus FF has no healing and offers no damage or recharge, both of which Time offers quite a bit of. Time also has incredible CC on top of that. Plus Farsight also buffs to hit.

Don't get me wrong I like FF, it is hilarious how you can just casually walk up to enemies and move them around like they are nothing but for practical purposes overall Time just outclasses FF imho.

Even worse, apart from Temporal Selection all buffs work on you and give you substantial benefits. The two best buffs FF offers are not available to you.

In summary, Time offers better CC, better offensive buffs, team healing, about equal with defensive buffs/debuffs and all FF does better is buff defence for the team, Time is even better at buffing your personal defence because Farsight has better defence values than DB and buffs your offense and perception on top of that.

Am I just overlooking something maybe?

[evetsleep]

Well one thing is status protection and -debuff resistance (Damping bubble).  Don't get me wrong, Time is fantastic, but those are the things you miss out on.  What FF offers (from my perspective) is a less busy set that I need to really use.  Meaning with FF as a secondary you can, more or less, focus on using your primary to be effective since most of the secondary effects are either toggles or clicks that last a long time.

 

I often pick up FF when I want to play at a slow pace.

[Wimbochismo]

I think that you've explained the differences between the two pretty well. If your question is a meta, which one is better than the other? They each provide the different "flavors" you listed, but in my view it comes down to their slotting. In this case I think they are quite neck to neck depending overall on what abilities you want from each.

 

The way I build Controller's is to be a bit more "selfish." So I'm more worried about hitting my defense goals and then proccing abilities.

 

In Time you typically want a lot of the abilities. On top of that they need some slots. You probably want Shield Breaker in Slowed Response. Heal set in Temporal Mending. Dark Watcher's in Time's Juncture. Perma Farsight which gives ~14.5 defense slotted but needs to be made perma. Enough recharge for perma Hasten and Chrono. On my Time builds, I can typically hit my defense goal and perma Hasten while fully proccing 3 Controller powers.

 

For FF you have the opposite. You can choose or not choose some of the powers and most can be 1 or 2 slotted. Personal FF is a nice life saver. You can slot up the 2 team buffs or 1 slot. All 3 of those powers are any easy LotG. Repulsion Bolt is a 1 or 2 slotter -res now. The only powers to fully slot are Force Bomb for procs, Force Feedback proc and does -res. And Dispersion Bubble which unlike Farsight is just a toggle and easy ~12 defense, no recharge needed. On my FF Controller's I can usually hit defense goals while fully proccing 3 powers + another 2 or 3 powers partially procced. In some cases still maintaining perma Hasten.

 

So it more depends on what kinds of powers (including primary) and what your overall goal is for each. Having easy access to a heal is awesome, being able to proc Fireball or Consume is cool too. I think both are great.

[Zect]

FF has mez protection and debuff resistance (one of very few grantable sources of debuff resist in the game), time has heals, +tohit and +rech.

 

FF bubbles are more convenient because they are on a short recharge with a large area. There's a reason people prefer FF and cold as the def buffer in pug hardmodes: it's not practical to expect pugs to stay clustered enough to always get time's pbaoe buffs.

 

That said, you're also playing MC/FF which is a combo with zero synergy. Try FF on a fender or corr. FF is completely overpowered on fenders/corrs who are able to get both power boost and soul drain from the same epic, and more easily stack offensive procs and debuffs from sets such as sonic blast with it.

Edited May 13, 2023 by Zect

[Sykar]

It is a themed character. Synergy had nothing to do with the decision to go FF though saying they have no synergy is a stretch, Dispersion, Dampening, Repulsion, Personal FF and Force Bomb give decent synergy to any controller primary. Also any combo should work well otherwise the choices we are given is pointless. Of course this could be solved of the two buffs that do the same thing just for different defences would be merged and we would get something that is not lazy design.

I can still get power boost on this character. Not sure why I should care about Soul Drain.

Edited May 13, 2023 by Sykar

[Doomguide2005]

I don't think you and Zect mean the same thing when you say "Synergy".

 

 

[Sykar]

Possible.

[Luigrein]

With the caveat that my FF experience especially is pretty rusty: I had a Grav/FF on live and I've run a Time/DP on homecoming (funnily enough, same character RP wise, but I decided to mix up the powersets on any rerolls from live.)

 

Time does feel like a more well rounded set, but the mez protection is a really attractive feature on FF.  FF also asks for a lot less commitment than time, both in slots and in business while playing. My time theoretically has perma mez protection from incarnate abilities, but she also has 4-5 abilities she would really like to have on autocast. Sometimes my reminder to refresh my mez protection buff is getting mezzed.  FF by contrast, is bubble the team every couple minutes and toggle on dispersion. Done.

 

So I guess what I'm saying is: If you want to emphasize your buff/debuff abilities time is probably a better choice, if you want to emphasize your control abilities I'd go FF.