Cold vs Dark for Controller

[Snarky]

Which combo would be strongest for team play?  Ice/Cold, Ice/Dark, Dark/Cold, or Dark/Dark.

 

Of note I take no buff ally powers in any configuration. 

 

I do love the undead.  Bonus points for recommendations on Ice or Soul Mastery to top it off.  The only power there I forego is summon seer.  I do not need Arachnos watching my every move

[smnolimits43]

Ice/Cold would be my choice. However, are you not getting the shields ??

[honoroit]

darkness affinity is pretty special, and unique, on controllers:

 

fade / soul absorb, tar patch...the silly pet... its good.  cold does def shields and debuffs on too long timers (coming off of poison as compare)

[twozerofoxtrot]

6 hours ago, Snarky said:

Of note I take no buff ally powers in any configuration.

 

To quote GlasDOS:

You monster.

 

Seriously though, if you're not going to take targeted buffs don't go /Cold on your secondary. It's just going to cause issues down the road on teams. 

 

Dark/Dark is about as perfect a Controller pairing as you can get.

 

Ice/Dark would work as well. I imagine Jack Frost and Dark Servant would play great together.

 

 

---

 

EDIT: I slapped this together for fun.

 

View This Build In MRB

 

 

Note: This entire thing is carried by Dark Affinity. If you dropped Ice and subbed in Dark Control it would undoubtedly do better.

 

• Teamplay Strat: Stay on your Tank like a Hobo on a Ham Sandwich. Drop Tar Patch and Ice Slick under them. Fold Space into it. Let Arctic Air do it's thing. Heal to taste.
• Pop Power Boost into Fade and you'll be softcapped Ranged and 41 DEF to everything else. Before incarnates. Pick the Alpha you like.
• A simple bind to make that work is /bind G "powexectoggleon Fade$$powexecname Power Boost". Press twice: first will cast Power Boost and the second will queue up Fade. It's not foolproof; it can be interrupted by other inputs but after some practice it's smooth. I guess your team might get buffs too. Maybe. If they're lucky.
• End management is heavily dependent on using Soul Absorption. Good news is using it over one corpse is enough and it's near perma. If you need extra End Management help, you have Conserve Power, which you needed to pay the tax with anyhow.
• I made some funky slotting choices to get Hasten 1 second off Perma. Dark's high potency/high recharge powers required this, but the good news is there's no sacrifice in capability.
• Fear is proc'd to be a bootleg AoE attack but should work equally well to lock up stray voltage that gets pulled onto your team by accdident.
• For big fat Stun Fun, Howling Twilight and then spam Frostbite over that to fish for Energy Font procs. The Stun Aura from Font should stack over Howling's stun (and the Immob will stop mob drift).
• If you're feeling the need for speed, you have the tools (stealth toggle + stealth IO in sprint; Teleport Target) to be the team MVP by stealthing to the objective and pulling everyone to you. Might want to kill pets first, though.
• Jack and Fluffy should be a nice yin/yang of control, debuffs, tankiness, and heals. Keep them nearby all the time.
• You can Teleport your pets to your side with these two handy macros:

      /macro_image "Inspiration_DmgAcc_Lvl_2" "Summon Dark Servant" "$$powexeclocation me teleport target$$petselectname Dark Servant"

      /macro_image "Inspiration_Recall_Lvl_1" "Summon Jack Frost" "$$powexeclocation me teleport target$$petselectname Jack Frost"

• Swap the Unbreakable Guard Proc and +Res IO from Temp Invul and Fade, respectively. Didn't play with this before posting, but doing so caps SL Res.

 

Edited May 27, 2023 by twozerofoxtrot
Added build and notes

[honoroit]

32 minutes ago, twozerofoxtrot said:

You monster.

 

that will definately piss off teams, and nerf you - theyre lotg mules if nothing else.

 

dark dark stacks. the pets stack. stuff cant hit you. you like dark.  slows are ok'ish, undervalued. but there's a cap on it or some such, i want to say 85% down?  infrequency of hits / coupled with slow, is helped by def so the fewer rolls dont connect.

 

nothing is safer on teams, than what I've personally been able to bring with dark/dark control.

 

most interesting controller? probably grav/kin (to me) right now.

 

never done ice, its due a buff. 

[Uun]

Dark Control > Ice Control. Ice was buffed in one of the recent patches but Dark still has a more useful set of controls. Aside from the standard holds and immobilizes, Dark has a cone fear, PBAoE stun, ST confuse and whatever you want to call Haunt. Ice has a PBAoE confuse/slow aura, cone fear/slow, knockdown patch and AoE sleep.

 

As far as ally buffs, do you skip PBAoE buffs that also affect you? That would knock out several of Dark Affinity's best powers (Twilight Grasp, Shadow Fall, Fade and Soul Absorption).

[Bellicose]

Dark/Cold.

 

And, you should take the two shields... for your pets... and as LotG mules... and if you accidentally buff a teammate, well, good for them. 

[Snarky]

7 hours ago, smnolimits43 said:

Ice/Cold would be my choice. However, are you not getting the shields ??

No shields

[Snarky]

2 hours ago, Uun said:

Dark Control > Ice Control. Ice was buffed in one of the recent patches but Dark still has a more useful set of controls. Aside from the standard holds and immobilizes, Dark has a cone fear, PBAoE stun, ST confuse and whatever you want to call Haunt. Ice has a PBAoE confuse/slow aura, cone fear/slow, knockdown patch and AoE sleep.

 

As far as ally buffs, do you skip PBAoE buffs that also affect you? That would knock out several of Dark Affinity's best powers (Twilight Grasp, Shadow Fall, Fade and Soul Absorption).

I would take all Dark Dark powers, buffing people as a side effect of buffing myself is acceptable.  If not optimal.  

[honoroit]

1 hour ago, Snarky said:

No shields

 

dark affinity's soul absorb ->> so very good for recovery and regen, coupled with the -hit on haunt, the doggo, all your skills, tar patch, dark servant... a 40y radius on shadow fall, fade... mobs hit rate is reduced, significantly. if they hit you, your pushing res all, and a small bit of def, if people are nearby, lucky them.

Edited May 27, 2023 by honoroit

[Hedgefund2]

Both are exceptional.  If "no ally buffs" is a constraint then this becomes an easy decision in favor of Dark.

 

ETA - I forgot to comment on primary.  Probably because of how lopsided I think the comparison is in favor of Darkness Control.  It's better at ST, better at AOE.  Ice's only advantage is when encountering hard to control enemies (e.g. Cims and Nems) it has a knockdown patch and (significant) slows.  

Edited May 27, 2023 by Hedgefund2

[bustacap]

Soul Absorbtion works on dead and living bodies so its fool proof to cast. You can get some truly ridiculous regen and recovery with it. It's enough that I don't need cardiac to never run out of end with Hot Feet. As fire I'm in the Mob anyway 48% positional (with Fade) and maxed s/l/d resist, I Have fade on auto with hasten so I don't really cast it for teammates. 

 

Dark affinity is a seriously powerful secondary. 

 

Saying that /ice is meta for 4 star. 

[Maxzero]

Its hard to beat Troller /Dark.

 

It literally has everything.

 

Teamwide Heal/Def/Res/Rec/Regen/DefDeRes buffs.

 

AoE -Dam/-Res/-Hit/-Def/-Rec/-Regen/-Rech/Slow debuffs.

 

Dark Miasma was already a top line Buff set and Dark Affinity took 2 of the weaker abilities (at least on Troller) and replaced them with two of the best buff abilities in the game.

[Frosticus]

I personally have more fun playing /cold than I do /dark both solo and teamed.

I think skipping the shields on /cold is a tough sell if you plan to team much. I don't have them on my solo build, but flipping to team spec is a macro away.

 

I find /dark to play a bit too slowly for my liking as just about everything seems to have a fairly long cast time and/or needs to be recast very often. 

There is no denying it is a very strong secondary though. If you enjoy it there is no way it will disappoint. 

[Maxzero]

On 6/2/2023 at 11:29 PM, Frosticus said:

I personally have more fun playing /cold than I do /dark both solo and teamed.

I think skipping the shields on /cold is a tough sell if you plan to team much. I don't have them on my solo build, but flipping to team spec is a macro away.

 

I find /dark to play a bit too slowly for my liking as just about everything seems to have a fairly long cast time and/or needs to be recast very often. 

There is no denying it is a very strong secondary though. If you enjoy it there is no way it will disappoint. 

 

I think the main issue is that Soul Harvest and Fade have such quick turn rotationa. Doubling the CD and Duration of each would be a nice QoL upgrade.