New player advice

[Modeus]

I don't have as many hours to play as I used to, but I have some friends joining the game with me and I'd like to make some potent choices if that's possible. Controller gameplay seems like it might be fun, if it can punch out enough damage to be formidable? Mostly I'll be in a mix of small teams and some soloing, if that narrows down the choices. I enjoy control, but not support - if that makes any sense. 

 

All that said, currently chewing on Ill/Rad or Dark/Dark? I see some mentions of plants being in a great place also. Should I be considering anything else? Or am I heading in the wrong direction with my first thoughts. 

 

Appreciate any pointers.

[MoonSheep]

some controllers can do reasonable damage once a higher level, it’s not typically a high damage archetype though - if you like control powers, a dominator would do a lot more damage. they have a control primary and an assault secondary

 

if you’re keen to stay with controllers, they’re still a great choice. dark/dark would be fun but not particularly damaging. gravity control or fire control would be higher

[Modeus]

Thanks MoonSheep, appreciate the help. I guess the only other thing is that it sounds awesome that the Ill/Rad can solo big challenges? (if that's still true, I'm struggling with the CoH googling info showing very old articles etc.)

 

Is that something the other controllers can do or is that limited mostly to an Ill/Rad?

[Icono04]

As MoonSheep says, a controller can do reasonable damage when properly slotted, but you are unlikely to ever be the biggest damage dealer on your team (and yes, I  am sure someone will chime in with an example of how they solo +6/x12 AVs on their controller or something like that 😉). Which is perfectly fine and not a problem, as long as you don't go in expecting to be the Big (damage) Dog, your contributions to the team are less visible to the untrained eye but still very important.

 

With that said, an all-controller team can be formidable in damage output, and is also tons of fun in an unconventional way. So if you and your buddies agree to all make controller characters and play those chars when you play together, I guarantee(*)  that you will have a good time.

Depending on whether you enjoy the controller playstyle or not, you might want to make one or more non-controller characters for those times when you are not teamed with your RL friends, but you probably would have done that anyway 🙂

 

 

(*) Not an actual, legally binding guarantee. I accept zero liability for any lack of good times you might experience. Your mileage may vary, past results are not necessarily indicative of future performance, etc. etc.

[MoonSheep]

27 minutes ago, Modeus said:

Thanks MoonSheep, appreciate the help. I guess the only other thing is that it sounds awesome that the Ill/Rad can solo big challenges? (if that's still true, I'm struggling with the CoH googling info showing very old articles etc.)

 

Is that something the other controllers can do or is that limited mostly to an Ill/Rad?

 

oh absolutely - they’re very good soloing things like giant monsters, archvillains etc later in the game once experienced. but on a “click by click” basis on an average team, you won’t be as hard hitting as a archetype with an assault focused set

 

ill/rad is a good combination, ill/cold domination also good

 

other controllers can also solo the big challenges, just sometimes requires a bit more planning and thinking

[Know1]

My suggestion is X/rad controllers.  Fire/rad is the traditional one, but if you can get your friends to make a team of rads to play together, you will quickly and funly stroll thru the game.

[Thraxen]

Ill/storm is good for some damage. 

[Argentae]

Welcome to the wonderful world of Controllers! You may find them addictive!  🙂

If you just want power, Tanks are brokenly OP at the moment IMO, but they aren't NEARLY as interesting to play for me personally. 

I've tried a lot of combinations, though by no means all.  I pick my builds largely (with some notable exceptions) for their ability to solo effectively, with a focus on AOE damage and ability to handle large high level spawns.
 

Of all the Controller combinations I've tried the hands down most powerful combination has been Plant/Dark. Plant/Storm and Fire/Dark are probably the runner ups and then probably Dark/Dark?  Fire/Storm is a blast to play as is Mind/TA but neither is as tough as the first group. There are a bunch of other combinations as well that are fun like Grav/Storm, my original main Mind/Kin etc. 

Plant/Dark is strong out of the gate, teams well, and just gets more and more powerful as you go through the game. 
Soloing +4/x8 is no sweat, can handle pretty much any villain group, and was able to solo incarnate content at +4/x8 BEFORE getting the first incarnate level shift. I've got several chronologies around here that try to document the experience, playstyles etc of the different combination. The one for Plant/Dark is:
 

 

[Crossie]

On 1/8/2024 at 5:14 AM, MoonSheep said:

some controllers can do reasonable damage once a higher level, it’s not typically a high damage archetype though - if you like control powers, a dominator would do a lot more damage. they have a control primary and an assault secondary

 

if you’re keen to stay with controllers, they’re still a great choice. dark/dark would be fun but not particularly damaging. gravity control or fire control would be higher

My controller is Gravity / Storm and he melts faces! 

[Doomguide2005]

A couple of somewhat random thoughts:  

1) I'm finding Stun Grenade from p2w npc very useful especially stacked on top of (or vice versa) your own Stun power.  Tends to leave mobs wobbling about.

2) proc the daylights out of your single target Hold.  Typically several procs will fire each time you use the Hold.

3) I really love the combo of Ill/TA (illusion/trick arrow).  High stealth from Superior Invisibility plus Flash Arrow means you're always attack when/if you want.  All those debuffs from TA mean your unbuffable  Phantom Army attack a lot of very squishy debuffed foes.  

4) Take your time.  Enjoy the ride.  50+ is the destination but not the journey.  You've got 1000 character slots on 5 servers.  Make a bunch of potentially very different Controllers.  Soon enough there will be one (or two 😉) which you'll find yourself returning to as you log in.  Then you've found your Controller(s)

 

PS:  Controllers as a whole are my favorite AT.

 

Edited January 9 by Doomguide2005

[skoryy]

If you're going to be teaming a lot with your friends, you'll want to lean less into damage to start than being a controller and support.  I've been re-learning my Elec/Time and I have to say its still a really fun combination and can be quite the credit to a newbie team.  Generally, though, find what looks fun and give that a try.  Anything and everything works in this game, especially if you're in a team, so go with what's fun for you!

[biostem]

On 1/8/2024 at 5:06 AM, Modeus said:

Controller gameplay seems like it might be fun

As a sort of introduction to the controller archetype, consider giving gravity control a try - it's pretty straightforward to pickup and play, and has a more direct-damage component to it.  Pair it with kinetics if you also want to be a buffing/debuffing powerhouse.  If you plan to team a lot, I've also had great results with earth control/pain domination.

[Area Man]

If you are interested in going with an Illusion/Rad controller, might I suggest my old "A Local Guide to Ill/Rad Controller" on the old forums?  It is still valid except that some of the newer IO sets give you some more options to go perma-PA.

Here's the link:  https://web.archive.org/web/20120904193426/http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=121712

 

Illusion/Time also has those two key elements: a Recharge buff for you and foe de-buffs to make your PA more effective.  It is almost as good as Ill/Rad.

My personal favorite for AoE control is my Earth/Storm.  He can solo, slowly, but can easily be the only controller on a full team.

Grav/Storm can solo fairly well.  You get four powers to deal ranged single-target damage in Gravity, plus Tornado and Lightning Storm in Storm.

[Doomguide2005]

I'll second @Area Man's call out ro  Earth/Storm. Very potent combo of Earth's many hard controls and Storm's damage potential.  There's a reason the one on HC is my fourth joining 3 from Live at 50.  Don't recall any others that I repeated on Live.

[Without_Pause]

On 1/8/2024 at 6:41 AM, Modeus said:

Is that something the other controllers can do or is that limited mostly to an Ill/Rad?

 

 

On 1/5/2024 at 1:17 AM, Without_Pause said:

An Ill/dark at end game on a team of 8 is someone with an audience of 7.

 

I'll also toss in Fire/rad, Fire/dark, Fire/time. Those work for Fire due to offering End management tools. If you are specifically soloing certain things, ie GMs, then yes, Ill is better, but Fire has a lot more AoE damage which I find works well enough for teams and general soloing. 

 

Note, I'm not saying Earth/storm is bad because it is a genuine control monster and one of my favorite controllers ever, but if you want damage, it will be later in the build and using procs to do so. 

[Argentae]

10 hours ago, Without_Pause said:

If you are specifically soloing certain things, ie GMs, then yes, Ill is better, but Fire has a lot more AoE damage which I find works well enough for teams and general soloing. 

 

This.

Perfectly phrased.

 

Fire is an AOE specialist. Enough control to fill the basic requirements, but with AOE damage as a "soft" control. In a build, I feel you should always play to the particular strengths of the power sets, though there are generally more and less subtle strengths depending on the set. In soloing, the game HEAVILY rewards large spawn sizes. It is possible to go too far towards pure damage, as you need strong mitigation to survive those large spawns, as any Blaster knows. 🙂But in addition to the mitigation requirement is the inescapable need to do enough AOE damage to take down the spawn at a reasonable speed. Fire comes with the latter out of the box. Plant does too, with the advantage that the damage from confusion scales with the spawn.

[Area Man]

On 1/12/2024 at 7:07 PM, Doomguide2005 said:

I'll second @Area Man's call out ro  Earth/Storm. Very potent combo of Earth's many hard controls and Storm's damage potential.  There's a reason the one on HC is my fourth joining 3 from Live at 50.  Don't recall any others that I repeated on Live.

 Yep, my Earth/Storm was my fourth recreation of favorite characters from Live.  Using both pet +Resistance procs on Rocky makes him very tough.  So I like to use invisibility to lead him into drawing aggro, then stand back to unleash the controls and Storm damage.

Of course, my Ill/Rad was my first.