What Works Well with Time?

[Arnabas]

I'm curious to know what other people find enjoyable with Time on a Controller. I have tried a few combos and none of them really felt right to me. 

I'm also curious about how to make the best use of it. I often hear people say that Time is a great set, but I find it rather average. I admit that my perceptions may be off a bit, but it sure feels like Ice does a better job of slowing enemies than Time does, which seems rather counter-intuitive.

 

So, what do you enjoy using with Time?

[SeraphimKensai]

Realistically any set can work well with time. Power boosted far sight on imps is pretty nice. Chrono Shift to boost your recharge works great for plant carrion creepers etc.

 

Personally I think it's best use is for a thugs/time mm built around the idea of permaesque gang war. 

[Frozen Burn]

Time is very versatile and will go with any set on any AT that takes it.  Just pick what appeals to you and play!  🙂  

[ZorkNemesis]

Plant/Time was one of my strongest characters on Live servers, one of the only ones where I managed to solo a giant monster in fact.  My old build doesn't quite work the same here, it was heavily neutered by the procs-per-minute change, but is still quite strong and can handle x8 spawns without much trouble.  Time is a good all-around set but it stands out with Farsight being an excellent buff that can be made permanent rather easily and Chrono Shift giving a huge recharge bonus to everyone nearby, plus solid healing over time effects and good debuff potential.  With Plant primary, spawns go down quickly when they're all confused and swamped by carrion vines.

[Death2Tyrants]

/Time has a little bit for every primary. In terms of Debuffs you have mostly Slows (both movement and recharge) and some -ToHit. So primarily Ice/ or to a lesser degree Dark/ make good pairs for stacking those effects. +Rech is desired by all Controller Primaries. /Time also brings a degree of control to bolster up your primary.

 

The only challenge with Ice/Time is managing END early on. If I am going to go through the trouble I much prefer Fire/Time. You'll need to fund the character for +Recovery buffs and use EndRedux in everything to avoid end crashing all the time but it can be quite effective. It really rewards aggressive positioning and gameplay. While leveling it was one of my most complimented characters and Controllers, you are a basically a walking AoE of Control on top of other effects you can use to shape the fight with.

 

Fire/Time is my top pick.

[Arnabas]

29 minutes ago, Frozen Burn said:

Time is very versatile and will go with any set on any AT that takes it.  Just pick what appeals to you and play!  🙂  

That's my issue though... I generally play based on concept and don't really look at optimization, but I need various elements (costume, bio, fun factor) to come together for me to stick with a character. I haven't found what feels fun (for me) with Time yet.

[twozerofoxtrot]

12 minutes ago, Arnabas said:

That's my issue though... I generally play based on concept and don't really look at optimization, but I need various elements (costume, bio, fun factor) to come together for me to stick with a character. I haven't found what feels fun (for me) with Time yet.

 

Have you played with Grav/Time yet?

 

Early on it feels blasty, later when you have Wormhole and Singularity, you can port enemies right to you while running time's juncture and they'll be helplessly pummeled to death by your pet- which can be damage boosted by Temporal Selection. Just remember to slot KD>KB on Wormhole and Singularity. 

 

Theme wise, this works for an astronaut, alien, or anyone who is traveling through the cosmos and might be affected by, or produced from the interaction between time, gravity, and relativity. Names like "Doctor Relativity" or "The Cosmoneer" are open to you with this theme, outer-spacey themes with plenty of room to be serious, tongue-in-cheek, or campy.

[Arnabas]

That's one combo I haven't tried yet...

[Frozen Burn]

1 hour ago, Arnabas said:

That's my issue though... I generally play based on concept and don't really look at optimization, but I need various elements (costume, bio, fun factor) to come together for me to stick with a character. I haven't found what feels fun (for me) with Time yet.

 

I am the same way - gotta have a good concept and costume, or I won't play it no matter how good it is.  But given that... with Time being so versatile, pick which Control set you want to play and develop a concept around that utilizing Time.

 

As twozero stated - Grav/Time is great and a classic combo and can easily fit a concept.

 

• Illusion/Time is another - a master illusionist could certainly also control and manipulate time, right?  (Plus, Time helps to get perma PA more easily)
• Symphony/Time - music is set time and time signatures - a natural combo!
• Earth/Time - Time is marked by the rotation of our Earth and it spinning through the cosmos - certainly has to be a concept there somewhere.
• Dark/Time - controlling time can be a dark forces thing - a witch/warlock tapping into unnatural forces
• Arsenal/Time - can go with the "Terminator" plot of a machine coming back through time to right a past event?  Or "Cable" the cybernetic soldier going back in time?  Or someone unique who discovered or stole a time distortion device?
• Mind/Time - easily conceived a mentalist could also warp time - look at Dr. Strange!  

These are just of the ones off the top of my head.  

 

Good luck!

[capricorpse]

Time's FX being sort of vague also means they can be re-tuned to many different concepts.  The easiest one would be a mage or wizard, and use either a new color scheme or several color schemes to tweak the FX and match your primary.  They could be reworked to look more like smoke and flames, or cold mist, etc.

 

Gravity/Time is a great combo.  Recently I teamed with a Mind/Time controller who locked absolutely everything down.  It was pretty impressive, I'm considering rolling one of them myself.

[ZorkNemesis]

On the discussion of concept, going back to my Plant/Time my character's actual power is the ability to use time dilation.  She uses it primarily to make the plants grow out of control, resulting in vines, brambles and creepers everywhere.  The plant path aura helps this as well as she produces grass and leaves where she walks and stands.

[Death2Tyrants]

2 hours ago, Arnabas said:

That's my issue though... I generally play based on concept and don't really look at optimization, but I need various elements (costume, bio, fun factor) to come together for me to stick with a character. I haven't found what feels fun (for me) with Time yet.

I'm the same way. Concept is king, usually.

 

Over time I found that just about any combo can be explained as a tech/scientific/mutant/magic ability and I just start the character as very generic avatar, I can always change the name and costume later. Limited concepts kept me away from combos that, to me,  are interesting, viable, and fun. I like the oddball combos and don't really enjoy some of the very popular combos I see in game or in popular guides.

 

Problem is fun is very subjective. What you may find fun others may not and vice versa. I think the best approach is to get in there and start playing different combos. It is trivially easy to get toons to 26+ which gives you a good sense of what the toon will play like in combination. About half of the combos I've made I've enjoyed while the other half sit on the shelf.

Edited March 4 by Death2Tyrants

[Heatstroke]

Time works well with everything. I havent found anything yet that it doesnt work well with.

 

But my favorite do far is Gravity. Works thematically and the powersets mesh well together. buffing the Singularity is a plus.

 

[Zect]

I had half an essay typed up about the game mechanical possibilities before you let slip that you build more based concept and gamefeel than optimization. With that in mind, I find that swirly time graphics are a nice stand-in for wind, water, and possibly fog, so a number of elemental or nature-themed concepts come to mind. Have you considered a corruptor? I liked my water/time corrupter a lot - although half my motivation for playing it is also to stop making stormies. 

[Area Man]

Time works quite well with Illusion.  Mine is named "Time is an Illusion." (Lunchtime doubly so -- a "Hitchhiker's Guide" reference)

Time and Rad are the only two secondaries with BOTH a Recharge Buff AND foe Debuffs -- both of which make Phantom Army more effective.  Generally, the goal with Illusion is to get Perma-PA, so the Recharge buff helps with that.  Since PA can't be buffed, the foe debuffs help Phantom Army be more effective.  Plus, Time adds some additional controls otherwise lacking in the Illusion primary, so the synergy between the sets is very good.

Personally, I rank Ill/Time just behind Ill/Rad, but very close.

[Scarlet Shocker]

Dark/Time would work very well I imagine, given that dark is one of the more damaging control sets.

 

Plant goes with everything

 

Mind/Time gives you great possibilities for names and should be pretty good, but maybe a bit slow solo.

 

take your pick!

[Death2Tyrants]

On 3/8/2024 at 3:06 PM, Area Man said:

Time and Rad are the only two secondaries with BOTH a Recharge Buff AND foe Debuffs -- both of which make Phantom Army more effective. 

 

What Debuffs are you talking about specifically?

 

/Traps and /Elec Affinity both have +Rech but neither has -RES (at least not without PROCs).

 

/Traps Time Bomb was improved with Temporal Bomb which now grants a stationary field of +Recharge; I think the buff value is ~+35%. /Traps also has -DEF with Acid Mortar.

 

/Elec Affinity also has +Rech but only provides -DMG (less useful to a solo Ill/) and has -REGEN in two powers. The effective recharge value by spamming Energizing Circuit gets it within or exceeding the buff range of those other powers.

[Carnifax]

3 hours ago, Death2Tyrants said:

 

What Debuffs are you talking about specifically?

 

/Traps and /Elec Affinity both have +Rech but neither has -RES (at least not without PROCs).

 

/Traps Time Bomb was improved with Temporal Bomb which now grants a stationary field of +Recharge; I think the buff value is ~+35%. /Traps also has -DEF with Acid Mortar.

 

/Elec Affinity also has +Rech but only provides -DMG (less useful to a solo Ill/) and has -REGEN in two powers. The effective recharge value by spamming Energizing Circuit gets it within or exceeding the buff range of those other powers.

Acid mortar does  -res too. So Traps does have +recharge and -res along with Time. But times +recharge is probably easier to manage.

Edited March 10 by Carnifax

[Death2Tyrants]

1 hour ago, Carnifax said:

Acid mortar does  -res too. So Traps does have +recharge and -res along with Time. But times +recharge is probably easier to manage.

😉

If we were talking about /Elec I could agree on "easier to manage" which I take to mean a consistent dependable buff.

 

The chaining is horribly less predictable and reliable to use as a means of closing the PermaPA gap. I've fired off chains standing right next to a player only to have the chain hit everyone else but me. You also have to spam it when it's up to maintain the uptime of the buff. Theoretically you could get a higher effective +Rech from /EA than the other sets mentioned but I have yet to build an Ill/EA (may set one up on Brainstorm).

 

As far as Ill/Traps, it all boils down to how far off a build is from Perma-PA without the buff.

On builds that are slightly off from being Perma-PA, it is fairly easy to set up and get the benefit of the +Rech.

You don't always need the full duration of the buff, just enough to shave off that last bit of recharge for PermaPA.

The activation is clunky since you have to place the bomb then activate it. The area is fairly generous though.

The power has been improved from being a skipable in /Traps with its reduced cooldown. It is up every other fight if not every fight.

 

 

 

[Ukase]

Has to be a few years ago, but @Nemu had posted a build for a fire/time controller that shamelessly copied and played from level 1 to 50+3, t-4 in all, with a badge count of at least 1200. 
It could use a respec to allow for better endurance at exemplared levels, but it certainly does well. 

 

 

[Area Man]

On 3/9/2024 at 5:51 PM, Death2Tyrants said:

 

What Debuffs are you talking about specifically?

 

/Traps and /Elec Affinity both have +Rech but neither has -RES (at least not without PROCs).

 

/Traps Time Bomb was improved with Temporal Bomb which now grants a stationary field of +Recharge; I think the buff value is ~+35%. /Traps also has -DEF with Acid Mortar.

 

/Elec Affinity also has +Rech but only provides -DMG (less useful to a solo Ill/) and has -REGEN in two powers. The effective recharge value by spamming Energizing Circuit gets it within or exceeding the buff range of those other powers.

I was specifically talking about - Resistance and (to a lesser degree) - Defense.  Those are the two debuffs which have the effect of buffing Phantom Army by improving their damage and accuracy.

A stationary +Recharge field has limited benefit, especially with a fast moving team.  Same with stationary debuffs.

[Kid Quality]

I have a Mind/Time/Sorcery 'troller, named Dr. Rune. Coupled with the free staff weapons, he's definitely my version of Doc Strange. He has virtually no enhancements outside a full set of L15-25 Hypnotize, but he's already a very fun tool to play. He requires a bit more strategery than my fire farmer, but once I figure out a build for him, I think he'll be a beast in the support area.

[Ringo]

I quite like the Chambers Brothers take, personally

 

https://youtu.be/AQSjV4DZ-Gg?si=ardbtJJY3-0mpnLn

[wjrasmussen]

On 3/4/2024 at 11:51 AM, Arnabas said:

I'm curious to know what other people find enjoyable with Time on a Controller. I have tried a few combos and none of them really felt right to me. 

I'm also curious about how to make the best use of it. I often hear people say that Time is a great set, but I find it rather average. I admit that my perceptions may be off a bit, but it sure feels like Ice does a better job of slowing enemies than Time does, which seems rather counter-intuitive.

 

So, what do you enjoy using with Time?

I ask myself this question everyday.  This video doesn't help but is fun to watch:

 

[Saiyajinzoningen]

I am also in the same boat.

over the past few years i have tried

time defender, time controller, and more recently time corrupter.

 

the corrupter is so far the best to play but

its a little clicky but not annoyingly so

the problem is even with perma-chrono shift I still run out of endurance fairly quickly (5 toggles)

and even after months of play I haven't ironed out a general rotation

I kind of wing it for every mob

So I have this ineffable feeling I'm not playing it correctly