Blackfire Archer (Fire/Trick Arrow) a chronology

[Argentae]

I've been toying with running a /TA controller for a bit. 

A lot of good recommendations for Plant/TA in another thread, but I've played a LOT of Plant/ between Veridicane (Plant/Storm) and Dionysus  (Plant/Dark).

 

I'm also tempted by Ill/Dark because I think it'd be thematically very strong together, and it's been... a looooooooong time since I played an Illusion controller. 

 

So I'm kind of wobbling back and forth between a Fire/TA and an Ill/Dark.
 

Fire/TA would get to stack Flash Arrow with Smoke (pretty much the same exact power, just Flash Arrow does a lot more -ToHit at -15 vs Smoke's -5), fully slotted that would be about -30 Tohit in zero aggro -percep targetted AOE with the same 80' range and 35' radius according to Mids.

 

Not sure what the effect of having stacked -90% perception would be? Might be interesting to find out.

 

Ill/Dark Would be a spooktacular build with a lot of visual interest and decent synergy.

 

I'm trying the Fire/TA at the moment. And while it's not amazing out of the gate, I think it's getting better. Fire is strong by itself, and although I have no self heal ability, the -ToHit is quite strong, and I DID test the -perception... It's effectively total invisibility. Which is kind of cool. 🙂

 

 

 

 

Edited November 30, 2023 by Argentae

[Without_Pause]

Fire/ta is a bit quirky since /ta likes being at range and Fire likes being in melee due to Hot Feet. I haven't tried it, but certainly solo it will be the more challenging of the two builds. Ill/dark in the end is borderline so good boredom could be an issue. 

[evetsleep]

6 hours ago, Without_Pause said:

Fire/ta is a bit quirky since /ta likes being at range and Fire likes being in melee due to Hot Feet. I haven't tried it, but certainly solo it will be the more challenging of the two builds. Ill/dark in the end is borderline so good boredom could be an issue. 

Trick arrow has mountain of debuffs that are all single target or AOE, so it works quite well in close range.  Fire/TA certainly isn't boring and once endurance is under control it roasts baddies quiet well.  Normally I start with Flash Arrow & smoke to apply the non-aggro -ToHit to the entire spawn, then I disorient, run in, apply immob, then disruption arrow.  After this, while they're cooking I drop bonfire and apply other AoE debuffs as needed.  

 

As you can see it's pretty busy, but effective.  Getting endurance squared is super important though as all those TA debuffs plus hot feet are not blue bar friendly.

[Doomguide2005]

     A couple thoughts about Smoke and Flash Arrow.  Either should safely reduce the targets perception to zero even if both the debuff is heavily resisted and applying the Purple Patch vs almost any mob (I'm not certain how or even if this is done).  It's -450ft and worst case would probably be Snipers assuming they have resistance to the debuff as their base perception is 149ft.   Biggest issue vs most Snipers will be getting into range for actually applying the debuff without being seen as you would need to trim off enough perception with your own stealth to reduce that perception to less than your Smoke or Flash Arrow's range (minimum of 69 ft of stealth.  Secondly keep in mind a portion of Flash Arrow's To Hit debuff is unresistable (-7.5% + enhancement)

[Argentae]

I did some testing using Flash Arrow and Smoke.
Either makes it so you can get close, but if you walk up to an even con spawn they WILL see and attack you.

If you stack both Flash and Smoke, then a +1 boss containing hazard spawn (Perez in this case) is completely unable to see you unless you actually attack them.
At this point (soloed to 12) I have pretty much everything from the Fire/ side and just Flash Arrow and Ice Arrow from the /TA side. 
Entangling Arrow I definitely need to pick up, but not sure I will have a use for Glue Arrow. 

 

Been awhile since I played something without either Steamy Mist or Shadowfall, so I hadn't thought about not having a +Res power to slot the +Def unique enh into, so it feels like I'll have to go with the fighting pool for Tough. Weave is always good with a build that has high -ToHit.

 

My math shows that if I slot Flash and Smoke for -ToHit I should be able to get them to about 30ish, and I saw a /TA guide that one of the Arrows has a debuff that decreases resistance to -ToHit which should get the total up to close to -40, which is pretty decent. Add the fish flopping of Bonfire (KB->KD slotted) and  Oil Slick and it should be decent mitigation added to the standard FF + Fire Cages.

Not sure it will be as tough/effective as Lord of the Ravens (LotR) is with Fire/Dark, and won't have the sheer environmental FX and barely controlled chaos of Lavan FireStorm, but  It looks interesting enough as a pairing with TA so I can get a feel for how TA plays now.

 

Ill/Dark I think I'll still want to try too, but Blackfire Archer has I think made the cut so far. I might start a Chronology for her...

[Psyonico]

Flash arrow has another advantage over smoke beyond just having higher -tohit.  Half of the debuff is unresistable.

 

As for the power that increases the -tohit, that would be Acid Arrow.  Only issue is that draws aggro.

[Onlyasandwich]

3 hours ago, Argentae said:

Either makes it so you can get close, but if you walk up to an even con spawn they WILL see and attack you.

 

Instead of relying on stacking these, just pop a celerity stealth IO into sprint. Smoke is pretty weak, and I would judge it pretty redundant if you're taking TA as your secondary. The debuff is pretty paltry, and not really worth enhancing. Flash alone will pull the weight needed just fine, and is as @Psyonico noted, half unresistable.

 

/TA is pretty power hungry - I want to pick pretty much all of them! Any skips you can find in the primary are worth considering. For me that would pretty much just be Ring of Fire and Smoke, though you may be one who prefers to skip the aoe hold as well.

 

You got me thinking about /TA on controllers! I think I'm going to roll up a Mind/TA myself. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited November 29, 2023 by Onlyasandwich

[Doomguide2005]

3 hours ago, Argentae said:

I did some testing using Flash Arrow and Smoke.
Either makes it so you can get close, but if you walk up to an even con spawn they WILL see and attack you.

Something is up then.  Of course when I went back to look at the wiki article I noticed the Limits article makes no mention of creature minimum only player.  And same for the article on Steath and Perception.  So maybe there is more to it than the implied Perception minus Stealth = zero then they are utterly blinded I was left with from reading the articles a while back.  But it doesn't jive with light testing i did back on Live with my characters  but none of them were Flash Arrow or Smoke using just stealth of varying degrees because I distinctly remember being able to stand literally toe toe undetected.  I'll have to run around a bit with my Ill /TA and a Power Analyzer to check it out some more.

 

[Argentae]

Yes, if you are using any form of stealth with either Flash Arrow or Smoke you get the equivalent of full invisibility. That makes complete sense.

 

I’m not sold on the need for both, but Smoke with a single IO (or very green SO) ToHit debuff slotted gives about another -7 to every single mob you just effected by Flash Arrow (given how perfectly they mirror each other) which is not negligible. -23 + 11 Def (Weave + the two +3 Def in uniques) is not at all as effective at mitigating damage as -30 + 11 Def. Granted, once set bonuses come into play the calculus changes, but this is on the way up starting at lvl 18 when I picked up Weave. Acid Arrow also probably shifts it a lot, but as mentioned it triggers Aggro and IIRC it also lacks anything close to the huge radius of Flash Arrow/Smoke.

 

Having both in effect also has the effect of team full invisibility tied to the mobs not the team/pets. Not sure it’s super useful. But it’s INTERESTING. :-)

[Argentae]

Note: Switched this over to a chronology thread, as it has the beginnings of Blackfire Arrow already.

 

Soloed her up to 24 tonight. Definitely starting to work. I generally shift to larger spawns fairly early with Fire Controllers given their ability to put out at least some AOE early on with Hot Feet and Fire Cages. On this character I had switched down to 2-3 team equivalent as I crossed the old SO threshold and the mobs got harder.

 

Tonight I got Bonfire back (currently 3 slotted with KB->KD, FF +Rech, and PosiBlast Dmg proc), and picked up Disruption Arrow and Acid Arrow. 
 

It’s getting good. At 24 I’m back to being able to handle a full X8 spawn at even con/+1 WITH Bosses included. 
 

it plays very different from Fire/Storm or Fire/Dark. Both of those lend themselves to a corner pull into a slow patch to clump up the spawn, but Fire/TA plays almost more like a somewhat fragile tank. I run HotFeet (6 slotted with 3 dmg and 3 endred) and Weave toggles. I may or may not pop a luck then Flash+Smoke on a centrally located mob. Then I run in grabbing aggro as I go so they run into the Bonfire I drop in the center. Once I get them clumped up pretty well, I pop Fire Cages, Acid Arrow, Flashfire, Disruption Arrow, and start holding the Bosses with Char & Ice Arrow as feasible focusing my single target dmg chain on one Boss till he drops.
 

The combo of the heavy -ToHit and the Knockdown from Bonfire is really decently effective. The -ToHit from Flash and Smoke is better mitigation in most cases than the -ToHit from Darkest Night in /Dark. It’s durable and less likely to get screwed up if the anchor gets loose, or a boss runs out of the range of the anchor. Definitely renew both at least once when they recharge to get mobs that might have been out of the AOE at the start.

 

I have to occasionally refresh Flash/Smoke and pop useful insps when I remember, generally don’t need them, though the lack of a self heal is troublesome. I have the panacea unique, which helps. I’ll definitely be adding the Numina and Miracle uniques.

 

Still have to add Poison Gas Arrow, and I think I’ll try slotting the Sandman heal enh as recommended on one of the guides.  Also need to pick up Entangle Arrow, less of a priority in the early levels, but the extra -Res will be helpful in taking down bosses.
 

Oil Slick Arrow will fit into the existing chain perfectly, more knockdown and more damage? Yes please. Obviously lighting the slick will NOT be an issue. 🙂 
 

I meant to check if Disruption Arrow stacks or not. I did dig through the combat log and didn’t see any evidence of the -ToHit being boosted by Acid Arrow on a Tsoo Boss I was fighting. I’ll take a look at both tomorrow, the Tsoo may have been an anomaly. 

 

 

 

 

Edited November 30, 2023 by Argentae

[SeraphimKensai]

Fire/TA seems like an interesting combo. I might just roll one up because I really dig trick arrow (I have maybe 4 of them).

 

Isolating a group of NPCs and using bonfire, FlashFire, OSA, Disruption Arrow and Acid Arrow seem pretty sick.

 

Smoke+Flash for basically invis and substantial tohitdebuff seem like good fun, especially when used with things like power boost, clarion radial, and musculature radial.

[Riverdusk]

On 11/29/2023 at 10:47 AM, Argentae said:

Yes, if you are using any form of stealth with either Flash Arrow or Smoke you get the equivalent of full invisibility. That makes complete sense.

 

I’m not sold on the need for both, but Smoke with a single IO (or very green SO) ToHit debuff slotted gives about another -7 to every single mob you just effected by Flash Arrow (given how perfectly they mirror each other) which is not negligible. -23 + 11 Def (Weave + the two +3 Def in uniques) is not at all as effective at mitigating damage as -30 + 11 Def. Granted, once set bonuses come into play the calculus changes, but this is on the way up starting at lvl 18 when I picked up Weave. Acid Arrow also probably shifts it a lot, but as mentioned it triggers Aggro and IIRC it also lacks anything close to the huge radius of Flash Arrow/Smoke.

 

Having both in effect also has the effect of team full invisibility tied to the mobs not the team/pets. Not sure it’s super useful. But it’s INTERESTING. 🙂

 

 

One neat trick if smoke plus flash really does give you full invis would be that you could click glowies (which normally surpresses your stealth) in complete safety.  Would be nice for when you want to speedrun a hunt glowie mission anyway.

 

Just thought of a perfect place for it as matter of fact.  That one mission on Posi where you have to click all the bombs that are surrounded by clockwork and inside by CoT.  You'd be the hero on that one. 😁

Edited December 2, 2023 by Riverdusk

[Argentae]

Got her up to lvl 32 last night. 

 

For context, since the late teens I have been running at +1 X8, as I ALWAYS focus on AOE whenever a powerset supports it.  

The aggro gabbing tanklike behavior mentioned above isn't sustainable, it was really more an artifact of that particular level, and fighting mostly warriors, which I more than half suspected was the case.

 

So now that I've played with more of the full TA powerset (everything but EMP at this point, which I will respec into when I do my normal early/mid 40's respec. I wait till the 40s as I really need more slots before I put that build together) I have a somewhat better appreciation of the set, though I still don't know it well enough to really make decisions. Part of that is because I focused on leveling up the character quickly, as it was obvious that you have to get to the higher levels to really get a feel for the set. So despite my initial intention of picking up all the TA arrows as they became available, I ended up taking every /Fire power as THEY became available, and working in the fighting pool to provide the +def to work with the -ToHit of Flash Arrow and Smoke.

 

1. TA as a set is definitely more complex than most of the secondaries. I definitely need to do some focused testing which I haven't spent the time on yet as I've been focused on just leveling it up. Most sets have a couple main things they focus on, and the synergies are generally pretty easy to see as what they do is fairly straightforward. TA is probably the most debuff focused set that I've played. /Dark is debuff heavy, but it also has a mixture of buffing and healing that complement the debuffs well. /Storm is also a good debuff set, but it's got several damage heavy powers and does have an (admittedly somewhat anemic) ally heal. TA really needs some time to grow, not just for the slotting and powers, but for players not used to it, it takes time and a bit of focus to work through the learning curve. I'm not done on that part yet. 

2. Like /Dark TA can do a reasonable corner pull into a patch, but it's not as effective at it as Plant/Dark or Fire/Dark as the lack of Fluffy's healing reduces the durability of the Imps substantially. I have a feeling it will still work ok once the build is fully mature, but it's a bit more complex. I also always run HotFeet and Weave as toggles and start with Flash/Smoke and then a debuff arrow (which is a super vague term as they are ALL debuff arrows) to pull the spawn into a Bonfire. I had skipped Glue Arrow and was using Acid Arrow as the pulling power originally. I don't recommend that combo. Instead, I now use Glue Arrow, Disruption Arrow with Bonfire a bit ahead of the center of the Disruption/Glue combo. I use Poison Gas (with a +range slotted) arrow for the pull to provide the -dmg mitigation so that the hits that DO come through are a lot less impactful. Once the spawn has clumped up and is bouncing well, I'll step out and use Flashfire, Oil Slick and then Fire Cages and start locking down any bosses with Char and Ice Arrow. 

3. For spawns that are tighter clustered together to start with, standard Fire/ opening seems to work better; Flash Arrow + Smoke -> Flashfire + Fire Cages -> run in and drop debuff patches in the middle of the spawn and start locking down bosses etc.

4. The lack of any healing +the fragility and crazy behavior of the imps are, as expected, one of the problems with this combo. I expect Plant/TA is much more effective for my general playstyle. 

5. This combo absolutely cries out for global +recharge.  Bonfire and Oil Slick Arrow are the limiting factors, if you had them up often enough this build would be enormously more effective. As I haven't started collecting sets yet, it's hard to judge, but I'd lay some heavy odds that that will be one of the watershed changes. Some Range/Melee +Def will also be game changing.

 

I swing back and forth about how effective it will be when fully mature, but my gut reaction is it will not eclipse Plant/Dark and likely not Fire/Dark. It's obvious that it's a late blooming combo though, so I'm reserving judgement till I get it slotted out with IO sets. At this point's hard to see it blowing through +4 X8 the way Plant/Dark does. I am very much enjoying the TA bag of tricks though, and the fast animations and complete focus on debuffing should play very well on teams, though like most debuffing it's likely to not be recognized by players that don't play debuff sets. 😛  

[Argentae]

19 hours ago, Riverdusk said:

 

 

One neat trick if smoke plus flash really does give you full invis would be that you could click glowies (which normally surpresses your stealth) in complete safety.  Would be nice for when you want to speedrun a hunt glowie mission anyway.

 

Just thought of a perfect place for it as matter of fact.  That one mission on Posi where you have to click all the bombs that are surrounded by clockwork and inside by CoT.  You'd be the hero on that one. 😁

I did some more specific testing this morning, and it appears that it works up to the purple patch kicking in, so probably not as useful in late game content when pretty much everything is purple. 

[Scarlet Shocker]

Fire/TA is great. I played one on live and it's the only Fire toon I could stick!

 

It solves one of the biggest issues with TA in lighting OSA - you have the power at your fingertips literally where most other sets require a bit of thought. So although not insuperable, it does give you a bit of extra leeway.

 

Others have mentioned that TA is range and fire is melee, but that's never been a problem for me, since as someone who began with blasters I found that I start at range and then move in to get up close and personal once my foes are flailing.  Your play style may vary but I found that I could debuff things, lock them down, then move in for the kill with my imps and hot feet.

[bustacap]

on my TA defender flash allows me to click the barrels in Posi 2 without aggro. I also have SS+celerity.  Its fully 6 slotted for the resist. This also works in other missions with a glowie involved.  He's also DP for the -dam synergies. Melee is no problem with TA. It also works with Hover blasting as well but on topic Hot feet doesn't play nicely with flying. 

 

On my fire/dark controller I never touched smoke.  Being resist capped to sle and good dark and psi resist and softcapped /m/r/a means I mostly don't care if they see me. 

[Doomguide2005]

     Another potential set of powers is to ignite OSA with Hot Feet by using Combat Teleport and then follow up with Fold Space.  I'm finding Fold Space quite useful and I can see it working well on Fire/TA for pulling mobs onto debuff/OSA central you've created.  I do this with a Fire/Sonic I created recently.  This also so far seems to do well keeping the crazed Imps in tight as well as most if not all they might otherwise aggro is already in the scrum.  

   

Edit:  Heck you could proactively create the zone of death in the middle between spawns with zero risk getting aggro and then Fold Space up to 16 targets into the fully prepped area (instead of spending time dropping patches etc. after they've been aggro'd).

Edited December 19, 2023 by Doomguide2005

[Argentae]

I've been playing my Mind/TA a lot recently. There IS an advantage to having to do something specific in lighting the Oil Slick. 

I open with Flash, then pull using PGA into a Disruption/Glue/Oil Slick patch, but DON'T light the slick until the whole spawn is flopping around so you get full damage. 

I really like Doomguide's idea... I've sort of been looking for a good reason to do a fold space build. Makes sense here.

[Argentae]

Circling back to Fire/TA this morning, and looking at the idea of including Fold Space into the build, I find that I can have everything in Fire except RoF, and everything in TA except Ent A and still fit in Hasten, CTp, Tp, and Fold Space by level 32. And BFA is currently at lvl 32 and begging for a respec.

Coincidence? 😛

 

On 12/19/2023 at 5:15 PM, Doomguide2005 said:

     Another potential set of powers is to ignite OSA with Hot Feet by using Combat Teleport and then follow up with Fold Space.  I'm finding Fold Space quite useful and I can see it working well on Fire/TA for pulling mobs onto debuff/OSA central you've created.  I do this with a Fire/Sonic I created recently.  This also so far seems to do well keeping the crazed Imps in tight as well as most if not all they might otherwise aggro is already in the scrum.  

   

Edit:  Heck you could proactively create the zone of death in the middle between spawns with zero risk getting aggro and then Fold Space up to 16 targets into the fully prepped area (instead of spending time dropping patches etc. after they've been aggro'd).

 

This has a lot to recommend it, as Doomguide said above. When you add it to the ability to use Flash/Smoke to blind nearby mobs, it would make parts of maps (Wedding Cake of Doom and one spawn in a hallway and another in an adjacent room for instance) a proverbial cake walk. 

Welp off to do a respec and try it out... 🙂

[Doomguide2005]

@Argentae

The drawback to setting it up between mobs that occurs to me is those crazy Imps.  You'd have to set up your debuff area far enough away to avoid them aggro'ing on the mobs but close enough to yoink a sufficient number via Fold Space for it to work.  I tend to run Tactics which I believe would increase the aggro radius on the Imps but not sure how it would play out.  Fold Space has a pretty large radius of effect though so hopefully this works as intended.

 

Edit. Might work even if they do run off attacking the nearest mobs.  I mean you do want to aggro stuff as long as they don't die before you yank things close with FS.  Certainly Flash Arrow would help there keeping the mobs oblivious to Leroy move by the Imps until they actual attack.

Edited January 1 by Doomguide2005

[Argentae]

So ran with the TP Pool for 5-6 levels in the late 30's. It's not terrible, I actually do like it as a travel power, and combat TP is useful on a build that needs +ToHit. The problem is. Fold space only seems to TP mobs that are in LoS. So for office maps for instance it means I generally have to do the full combat twice as I work through the second part of the spawn.
It's not un-useful, and would probably be more so at lower levels when breaking the spawn up would be more useful. At the late 30's though I'm finding the workflow to be better when I don't try to use fold space.  I tried to be consciously aware of the fact that I have a knee jerk comparison with Wormhole, which is just not fair.

After due diligence with this build though, I think another pool would be a better fit for my particular playstyle.

For the moment I've fallen back to Sorcery, though I waffled a bit on Fighting instead. The big thing is that both Sorcery and Fighting get you a -dmg res set so you can slot Dam Res IO sets like the two +3 Def enh and the + HP unique.

I have found this build to be the one that best meshes with Stone Mastery of all the builds I have played yet. Mainly because it DOES provide a +def power to hold LotG, AND Fissure is a surprisingly good fit.  It works really well with a 5 pack of Posi Blast (Do NOT slot the +Rech containing enh ) + the FF +Rech. Might look at it for the Absolute Amazement purp set, but I really like Posi Blast in it.

So if I'm going /Stone, then the +Res of RoP works well with the -Dmg debuff of Poison Gas Arrow and having status protection on tap makes the +HP and makes the regen knockon effect of Earth's Embrace extra useful. 

 

I'm going to see how it works out, nice thing is it's a mitigation style I haven't really tried for a Controller, so that will be nice/useful all by itself. I've done -ToHit + High Def a lot. 😛

 

 

BlackFire Archer Controller (Fire Control - Trick Arrow).mbd

Edited January 6 by Argentae
Always forget it's /Stone not /Earth. :-)

[Argentae]

Played the respec build a fair bit last night. For context I'm largely soloing +2-3X8 CoT (Council is easier given the Smashing/Lethal Def focus of Rock Armor), though I have bosses turned off ATM as my live build is pretty heavily AOE dmg focused.

 

Single Target will utilize Seismic Smash for both control and damage along with Char and Ice Arrow, which will give me THREE good ST hold/damage powers, but just got SS, so it's only got it's default slot. Char, Ice Arrow, and SS will all get 6 slotted with mostly Procs. ST attack chain should do over 1000 (SS is nearly 400 and SS+IA+Char total's something like 1060ish) All are heavily underslotted ATM as I've been building out the AOE.  From the hold side, SS is a one shot boss hold at mag 4, and then Char + IA has the second held while everything is bouncing in Bonfire/Oil Slick.

While it can be fragile at times as I'm NOT building for +Def at all, the clear speed when everything goes right is impressive even with a build that's not fully mature. Once I get Earth's Embrace it should be one of the tougher Controllers I've played and more in a can-take-a-punch way than my normal soloing build.

The build above is totally speculative, while I've dabbled with /Stone in the past I've never stayed with it largely because I generally use fast hover for 3D positioning reasons, which is simply incompatible with Fissure.

I've really grown to like Fissure with this build.  The FF +Rech procs pretty reliably, as it does in Bonfire, so I have two solid FF +Rech AOE powers that both fit very well into an AOE attack chain that meshes well with HotFeet melee fighting.  I tried filling Fissue with dmg procs in mids and the dmg total of 176 (5 dmg procs and the FF + Rech) is 176.5, while a 5 pack of Posi Blast is 84.3.  A difference to be sure but not a HUGE difference. Set bonuses from Posi Blast are solid as always and one of the things I like about Posi Blast is the nearly 50% endred, This build is end hungry. Could also slot it for the Stun, but it's something I spam in combat, and getting decent dmg from that seems to work well.

 

Eh. Still playing around with options, appreciate all the great perspectives of the Controller forum as always!

[Argentae]

There is more variability in the AOE chain than I'm used to, always start with Flash - Smoke but after that it varies.

Pulling into a Disruption/Glue/Bonfire works pretty well. Imps of course run in and the alpha strike from the spawn is broken up and diffused by the time I step around the corner and hit them with FlashFire/Fire Cages. Run in and hit Fissure, Oil Slick, Acid Arrow and start cycling through AOE attacks and Debuffs.

Gets more complex if  they are grouped tighter to start with and I open with Fire's traditional FF + FC at the start then run in. As Disruption and Glue arrows and Bonfire are not already in place, they need to be worked in. I've recently been thinking about the fact that Oil Slick needs to go out before Fissure and Bonfire to get the benefit of the FF +Rech.  
So from an optimizing damage perspective maybe Disruption - Oil - Fissure - Acid - Glue - Gas (gives me a bit of a heal from Sandman) - Bonfire, but I really need the mitigation more at the beginning so I tend to go with FF+FC - Run in - Fissure - Bonfire - Disruption - Oil - Gas - Glue - Acid. 

It varies a fair bit with the details of what villain group it is.  Lot of different things to juggle, which makes it fun.

 

An unexpected use for Spirit Ward: I've found it's somewhat handy as a way of keeping the most damaged Imp from dying in the second spawn, so I resummon less, which is good for end and makes it more likely I'll have it ready when I do lose multiple imps. Not game changing, and works way better on a temporary pet, but worth keeping in mind as an option.

[Doomguide2005]

Yep I'm finding/have found Fold Space much as you describe.  A tight map indoors truly hamper things effectiveness.  Open areas are much more conducive to using FS (like the ITF towers).  Many of those warehouse or cave map branches end in larger open areas or have 3-way intersections along the way.  Mobs are around a corner, pull it into to the hall leading to the intersection then use teleport/speed to beat them to the 'yoink point'.  FS like many powers it pays to be mobile.  Or have multiple builds at play.  One for tight indoor maps (hi purple caves) the other for maps like the ITF.  And in a build at endgame or otherwise well IO'd FS is all but if not a one slot wonder to be effective with large amounts of global recharge and accuracy.

 

[Argentae]

Finally got Earth's Embrace at the end of last night's gaming session. Hard to say for sure yet as it's only got the one +rech in it, but I did start feeling tankier. I was running CoT +2X8 with Bosses (finally added bosses back into the mix now that I'm starting to get some ST damage  in with SS  5 slotted and both Char and Ice Arrow starting to collect dmg procs.). So I was fighting X8 spawns at +2 and +3 to me. Obviously Acc is still an issue to a degree, though Oil Slick really is a panacea for that.

I've somewhat settled on an opening pattern of FF + FC -> Oil Slick - > Bonfire -> Fissure -> Disruption -> Gas -> Glue -> Acid if I'm not doing a corner pull as mentioned above. 

Do NOT neglect the Poison Gas Arrow, it really helps.

 

I'm really loving Seismic Smash on this build, it hits like a truck. My numbers out of mids above are low because I somehow forgot to factor in the containment damage. On Char and Ice Arrow I get great damage from the dmg procs, but Ice doesn't DO damage inherently, the 420 per hit is ALL dmg procs so it doesn't benefit from Containment at all. Char does, but you get a lot more impact from dmg procs than by for slotting it for dmg, so again the containment damage is somewhat minimized as a factor.

 

NOT the case with SS as is/should be obvious. I was hitting +2 and +3 bosses for 300-360 damage with nothing but green SOs slotted in SS.  It gobbles Endurance, and will definitely need a fair amount of global +Rech to fit well into my ST attack chain, but my speculative slotting for it (3 Hecatomb %Dmg, Dmg/End, Dmg + 2 Hold %Psi Dmg, and the Superior Entomb +Absorb/Rech) if I slot Intuition to put it about 115% dmg slotting should generate about 578, or 751 on Disruption Arrow patch. Woof. That will leave a mark. 🙂

 

I may well pull back and take another holistic look at my build. I don't have any sets slotted other than the 5 Posi Blast + FF +Rech combo in both Bonfire and Fissure, so I'm still pretty open to change.

 

I've never really tried putting together a Controller build that focuses on +Res instead of +Def, so this is new territory for me. Might make sense here though. With all my debuffs up and EE running I lived through some 2-3 spawn ambushes a lot longer than I would have expected. The Smashing/Lethal +Def of Rock Armor paired with the -ToHit of Flash + Smoke and all the other mitigations works well too especially with Council, which is why I've been doing mostly CoT. Can't wait for the Succubus bosses to go away. I never see them in lvl 50+ missions. Which I kind of think is a mistake, their Confuse power is really annoying/effective.  CoT would be more interesting to fight in end game PI mission farming if they were still there instead of all Death Mages.

Edited January 7 by Argentae