Officially Unofficial Weekly Discussion #29: All things Mez (Control Set Discussion)

[SeraphimKensai]

Welcome back folks. This week we're talking all things purple (except for Warshades)...

 

Feel free to discuss, compare, and contrast any control sets in the game. Do you have a preferred control set you enjoy? Is there one that you don't like? What do you find enjoyable about playing control sets? Is there anything that holds you back from playing control sets? Do you have any interesting thoughts for a new control powerset? Do you find mez to be in a good place now or does it need tuning?

 

As always thanks for playing.

[cranebump]

What I like about controllers is having them lock everything down while I blast it with impunity. 
 

(another thing I like is when you have a ton of trollers running together and slowly, surely destroying everything-Team Anaconda FTW!)

[Anthraxus]

Yeah, CoH's controls are second to none, at least in my MMO experience.

 

Every other game I play feels like any status effects only last 1-2 seconds at most, and that is just not a powerful feeling; CoH Controllers feel POWERFUL once they get up there in levels.

 

Another beautiful thing in this system is the effective pairing of controls with powerful debuff options.

 

Love da Controllers!

[Techwright]

Controllers might just be my favorites.

 

Illusion/Storm is my favorite combo.  I've said it before, but to me it is the Swiss Army Knife of the game.  An answer to practically every challenge (or so it seems).

 

Ice is probably my second favorite.  While the damage feels much less than Illusion/Storm, it's powerful on a team, and I've frequently noticed the team's boldness growing when I'm playing it.

 

I've an earth dominator, and the control feels similar to ice, though for some reason (possibly my own failings at design) it doesn't feel as great at damage.  Earth is the one thing in control that bugs me and that's the large, vista-blocking graphics.  I really hope we may one day see a reduction in their size.

 

Electrical is a lot of fun, but (and again, this just may be me) I feel like I have a choice to make: trade an already modest amount of damage for a notable end drain.  As several opponents can attack with only the smallest of endurance,  I kind of feel like this power is lacking some "oomph" (that's the technical term).  I'd much rather have a strong damage ability (for a controller anyway), a little end drain, and possibly some third element: maybe a proc for occasionally more severe end drain effects.  An electrical spike if you will.

 

Gravity/Time is a lot of fun, but I only play it in groups.  I've never been able to get it to reasonably solo.

 

Plant control, at least at the higher levels, feels great.  Again, not so much on damage (YMMV) but absolutely great on holding rooms in check. Mine is combined with storm and may be the second most powerful of my controllers as a result.

 

I've no direct experience with Symphony, Mind, or several of the secondary powers, so I'll pass on commenting on those.

 

I've not played Dark on a controller since the OG, and I don't recall enough to comment.

 

Secondaries of Kinetic and Force Field are, of course, great for teams.  Nothing new to report there.

[Greycat]

5 hours ago, SeraphimKensai said:

Welcome back folks. This week we're talking all things purple (except for Warshades)...

 

Feel free to discuss, compare, and contrast any control sets in the game. Do you have a preferred control set you enjoy? Is there one that you don't like? What do you find enjoyable about playing control sets? Is there anything that holds you back from playing control sets? Do you have any interesting thoughts for a new control powerset? Do you find mez to be in a good place now or does it need tuning?

 

As always thanks for playing.

 

No Warshades? Boooo! >.>

 

I love mind. I play it frequently. I find people seem to dismiss it a lot - even sleeps ('til I shut down problematic enemies with them. Sure, might be a second before they're up again, but  typically without a power runnign that was causing issues.)

 

Dislike? Still don't like Controller illusion. "Look! I'll makemyself invisible! And do it again!" bleh, ok. And it's one of the few times I'd agree "yes, hasten is needed," especially while leveling - which is something else i don't care for, really.

 

Only thing that keeps me from some sets would be certain combos that are more support heavy. I've mentioned running ice/emp and earth/ff and having to wait 'til enemies die of old age if I try to solo. (And yet I'll still solo trapdoor...) They usually get a second build to be able to do *something.*

 

[UltraAlt]

6 hours ago, SeraphimKensai said:

Do you have a preferred control set you enjoy?

 

Character conception based as always.

 

6 hours ago, SeraphimKensai said:

Is there one that you don't like?

 

Not sets per se, but sleeps and the power telekinesis. 

 

I would love to play on a sleep based team, but I don't know if I will get the chance to do it.

In general gameplay, as soon as you put a bunch of enemies to sleep, a teammate is going to do AoE damage and immediately wake them all up.

 

Telekinesis, well, I'm not even sure why I need to go into that one. In theory, this could be helpful on a team without a tank when an entire team knows the tactic of falling back when things go south, but most teams these days don't even know/are unwilling to even roll-back a bit to gain a tactical advantage in a fight.

 

6 hours ago, SeraphimKensai said:

What do you find enjoyable about playing control sets?

 

The controls!

I don't care if they are hold, immobilizes, confuses, disorients, etc. I like controlling the enemy's behavior ... keeping the enemy busy so that they can be picked off one at a time or bunches of them at once through AoEs.

 

I tend to play on teams, so the controller is a force multiplier for the damage everyone is generating.

 

6 hours ago, SeraphimKensai said:

Is there anything that holds you back from playing control sets?

 

Playing non-control set ATs!

I switch characters a lot.

 

Sometimes it is just who I pick to play.

Sometimes it is about the level of content that I'm seeing that someone is trying to recruit for.

 

6 hours ago, SeraphimKensai said:

Do you have any interesting thoughts for a new control powerset?

 

Maybe some kind of ensorcellment set with more magical themed powers.

Confuses that turn the enemies into snakes or demons while they are under the influence of the confuse power.

Magical chains that immobilize and/or hold.

I'd have to think on this some more. The idea about the transformation of enemies that were confused was the start of the thought pattern.

Disorient or fear attack based on a cone attack of bats, doves, or small dragons - kind of like the bird cone-attack in the beast mastery set.

Flying monkey pet(s)?

 

 

6 hours ago, SeraphimKensai said:

Do you find mez to be in a good place now or does it need tuning?

 

As I indicated earlier, the only real issue I have is with how easy it is to wake a character up from sleep.

I'm not sure how it would happen in game mechanics and balance-wise, but I think it would make sense to have a certain amount of disorient while coming out of the sleep state ... even just in general and even it cutdown on the length of the sleep in general. 

This way you would have an incentive to use even when you know your allies are going to immediately "wake up" (essentially non-sleep) all the foes you just slept. You would even have a moment to see the enemies coming out of the sleep and possibly have time to re-sleep them if you are on a team that is trying to keep most of enemies asleep so that you can single target members of a sleeping mob.

On the group level, this would mean your sleep would at least having the disoriented effect instead of instantaneously snapping out of it because they were attacked.

 

I know that when you attack someone that is feared that they attack back, but it seems to me that they snap back into the feared state until the end of the fear affect.

With sleep, they are sleep until the effect wears off or they are woken up by an attack.

 

Not sure what I'm saying makes sense or not.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Snarky]

The only controller I have is Dark Dark.  I love many things about it.  But I am so impatient with some teams I need a Blaster lol

 

My Ice Ice Blaster feels like a Controller that found the cheat code to do damage

[357trall]

I think mez is in good place, though mobs often don't last long enough to be worth locking down.

 

I have taken a mind/time controller to 50 and have a few others in the 30's that I tried to like(illusion, cold, symphony,fire).

 

Sleep isn't a bad mez and works rather well on enemies, either locking down a spawn that the team mistakenly aggroed or missed is very useful. Even a few seconds of sleep can be useful and sleeps recharge quickly and last a long time. That said, just about every other mez is prefered because they don't break after damage and release the mobs to continue attacking.

 

My complaints about the sets I have played are rather small. I would like to customize the illusion pets more, the sounds on sympony get annoying after awhile, and mind aoe powers seem to have longer cooldowns compared to sets with comparable powers.

[Scarlet Shocker]

I love controllers in this game and all other MMOs seem to miss them... I played TSW for a long time after shutdown and most encounters left me wishing I'd got a lockdown to stop zombies or giant mutant moths eating me...

 

I love the variety of effects - ultimately a mez is a mez, a hold is a hold, a stun a stun but each power set seems to have a unique and distinct flavour that I don't feel with blast sets. I also find the controller secondaries complement them well... and mixing and matching can give very different effects and feelings too.

[0th Power]

The only control sets I have liked have been fire and plant.  Plant is a cheat code for a dominator once you have permadom (which is the only way to play).  Something about fire just makes it interesting to me, not sure what it is, maybe im just a pyro.

 

Controllers overall, I don't like buffing so that leaves me few options.  My fire/rad is a thing of beauty though, especially when in the Frad superteam.

 

Dominators, I build for permadom as quickly as possible.  The assault sets are in a good place, but that isnt the topic of this discussion. 

[SeraphimKensai]

4 minutes ago, 0th Power said:

The assault sets are in a good place, but that isnt the topic of this discussion. 

That will be coming up for a topic soon (probably in a few weeks).

[Uun]

I've currently got Fire, Gravity and Illusion controllers and Dark, Earth, Mind and Plant dominators (and played Ice on live). In terms of all-around battlefield control, I think Earth has the widest array of tools, but Fire and Dark come close. Plant (especially on dominators) is just an "I win" button because of how overpowered Seeds of Confusion is. Illusion is very powerful, but plays very differently than other control sets. I won't play Mind on a controller. It underperforms other sets because of its limited ability to set up AoE containment. Fear and confuse really need to set up containment.

[rolandgrey]

I think Fire is about the only Control set I've never really gotten around to playing.  I tried a few times back in the Paragon days, but I could never really sink my teeth into it.

 

I am absolutely LOVING Illusions on Dominators, though.  I've got an Illusions Controller, and it plays as expected, but on my Dominator, it really makes that particular character pop.  He used to be an Ice/Martial Dom, but that just never felt right for his theme.

 

Unfortunately, I'm not that into the concept of controllers or control powers.  It doesn't inspire much passion in me, so this isn't going to be as verbose as my usual responses to these threads.  It is nice to be able to lock down a large group of enemies, though, and turn the tide of battle with a single power.

 

Probably my favorite set is Gravity, though, because it has a bunch of wonderful things you can do to your enemies.  There's a collection of raw damage powers, true, but also Wormhole and Propel to place your enemies precisely where you want them or to bat clustered groups of enemies around.  Plus, Propel leaves a surprisingly large pile of junk all over the place, and with the right use of the Singularity, that pile will follow you throughout the map!

[Spaghetti Betty]

Booooriiiing!

 

Joking. Mez ATs just aren't for me, but I have the attention span of a small boulder.

 

The one time I did enjoy a mez AT was an Ill/Sav Dominator. That toon is still a ton of fun to play to this day. Just one solid aoe mez and then bunch of blasting and scrapping to do.

 

I can't tell you what would make me play another mez-focused toon to 50 because I really don't know! I have a lot of projects in the graveyard that tried to capture the same magic that Ill/Sav did to no avail.

[SeraphimKensai]

14 minutes ago, Spaghetti Betty said:

Booooriiiing!

 

Joking. Mez ATs just aren't for me, but I have the attention span of a small boulder.

 

The one time I did enjoy a mez AT was an Ill/Sav Dominator. That toon is still a ton of fun to play to this day. Just one solid aoe mez and then bunch of blasting and scrapping to do.

 

I can't tell you what would make me play another mez-focused toon to 50 because I really don't know! I have a lot of projects in the graveyard that tried to capture the same magic that Ill/Sav did to no avail.

I play an ill/sav too. Give a plant/ta troller a try despite it being a controller it does pretty decent damage.

[...]

I like fast casting snappy mez's. Anything with a 2+ second cast time just kills me. Especially late game when mobs are mostly dead before you can blink. 

 

I want to love electric control. So much. I love dominators though, and the set is a bit of sleeper on Doms (pun intended). Nothing benefits from domination apart from the holds. It's even less than illusion! If I were to change that set I'd make the sleep patch dominate, the chain confuse dominate and make jolting chain a 1 second cast. 

 

I also want to love mind control. I really do. But once you have tasted the forbidden fruit that is plant control...

 

Also fire control. I'd speed up the cast time of bonfire. Or illusion control's spooky. It's like 3.5 seconds to cast, and I kinda wanna just get the mez out of the way so I can punch something.

 

And gravity. Of all the sets that needs a fast casting single target hold, this is it. Lift, propel and then a 2 second cast time hold. Ugh. 

 

Actually I'd probably normalize all the single target holds to 1.32 second Arcanatime. Why do holds take 2+ seconds? We've got enemies to smash!!!

[...]

I'd also speed up the cast time of mesmerize and levitate in Mind Control. Make them pseudo-dps for dominators!

[Lusiphur Malache]

I was playing another toon that kept running headfirst into brick walls and a number of doms and trollers came to my aid and making short work of my problems.  This got me to play my first controller, a dark/poison, that I did everything wrong with, poor power choices, improper slotting, and the fact that I played him as a low dps blaster.  Eventually, I would learn how to play Cruel 2B Kind somewhat correctly, never did get to rez a teammate, some people would rather stay dead.

 

Got a couple of dominators to 50, a plant/martial and a symphony/sonic.  Love to play both, but sparingly as both seem to attract more than their fair share of attention from mobs, particularly bosses.  While my play has improved, my slotting still is lacking.

 

On 5/25/2023 at 12:46 AM, Snarky said:

My Ice Ice Blaster feels like a Controller that found the cheat code to do damage

Me too.

 

Got a lvl 12 elec/time controller that is boring to play solo and a bulldozer looking for brick walls on teams.

[...]

I've said it before many times, but I'll say it again: I'm still not sure why AoE holds are on a 4 min cooldown. The few times I take them, I'm doing it for set mules. 

 

They're very handy when you need them, but 4 mins is just punishingly long.

 

Remember when Nukes had a 6 minute cooldown? And a terrible crash? And they were changed because it sucks to have a power that it is up so infrequently you wonder why you took it?

[Snarky]

37 minutes ago, ... said:

I've said it before many times, but I'll say it again: I'm still not sure why AoE holds are on a 4 min cooldown. The few times I take them, I'm doing it for set mules. 

 

They're very handy when you need them, but 4 mins is just punishingly long.

 

Remember when Nukes had a 6 minute cooldown? And a terrible crash? And they were changed because it sucks to have a power that it is up so infrequently you wonder why you took it?

This is a great point in a game that is streamlining itself to Blasters Corruptors and Tanks.  A big step in making ATs with Holds instead of Nukes would be to address the disparity in cooldowns.

[DougGraves]

I play a lot of controllers and dominators but at low levels.

 

Plant is by far the best low level control with Seeds of Confusion up basically every fight with solid aoe control.

 

Electric is generally my preferred because static field works so well during ambushes in Posi 1 and can be dropped around corners in Frostfire.

 

Ice control is okay.  It would be great except clockwork and some others bounce out of ice slick which makes it much less useful at low levels.

[Spectre7878]

Controllers and Dominators are my favorite class.  I love controlling the battle field. I would love to see some fixes I fell that would make the sets better. 
 

A few thing I could be fixed are. 
1. Controllers damage. I just wish it was a little more on their single target attacks. 
2. Endurance and Recharge. Endurance has always been an issue for most AT, but mez sets really take a lot out of them. On top of that AoE holds have terrible recharge. It would be awesome if recharge was decreased and endurance lowered a tad. 
3.  Pets. Pets. Especially on controllers kind of annoys me. They aren’t all equal and some are just plain dumb. I would love the pets to be looked at. Singularity is like the bomb. While fire imps just die. I for one, count on my pets for damage, and for them to die so fast just makes them pointless. It would be awesome if imps, gremlins, and phantasms would get more defense and or resistance. I also think it would be cool if controllers got their pets out of the box. 
4. Toggles. Can we please lower the endurance use on controller toggle powers. Hot Feet, choking cloud, entangling aura, and shadow fall are just to high. 

5. Containment. It’s ok but feels lack luster compared to other inherent abilities. I love the extra damage it gives, wish it was a bit more. What feel controllers are lacking. Is control. Dominators get domination, and the can hold bosses. Controllers seem to only hold minions and lieutenants. I wish controllers got something to lock down stronger targets.

6. Fear Powers.  Please make fear powers respawn on foes even after attacked. 
 

Powers I would like to be fixes

Smoke. Can we get some control out of this power or even a high -to hit. It’s a strange power to be in a control set. Plus we’re it is on the set tree, I feel like there is a hole in the set for aoe attack. 
Telekinesis. Another odd power. I would like it to be a mass levitate power with decent damage. Or it could be Minds immobilize power. 
Drain Psyche. Can we change this to alive and defeats foes. Only reason I say this. Is because in most comics. Telepaths could easily read someones thoughts if they are knocked out. 
Blackhole. Remove intangible, and make it like vacuum anything thing that gets close to it. 
 

 

[OverkillEngine]

On 5/28/2023 at 8:11 AM, Snarky said:

This is a great point in a game that is streamlining itself to Blasters Corruptors and Tanks.  A big step in making ATs with Holds instead of Nukes would be to address the disparity in cooldowns.

*Slams beer on TV*

Swap the Pets from 26 to 12 (where the AE hard controls other than immob tend to first be) and give the AE holds the nuke treatment of 1-2 minutes base cooldown. Smooths out the leveling curve on control sets that way since you can share aggro a bit with pets and they contribute the damage you lack even with Containment.

May not even need to do this on Dominators, it's mainly Controllers that have the atrocious early game. As much as I love them and know what value they bring to the team, I have avoided making a Controller since I got back due to knowing how annoying they are to level until they get into their 20's-30's where they take off.