Request: Controller suggestions for 2-person team with a Savage/Fire Brute

[Octogoat]

He's savage/fire go fire/kin

[vibal]

On 10/4/2024 at 7:25 AM, Without_Pause said:

While yes, Ill to a default is one of the best sets to make soloing essentially boring due to ease, it is not one to bloom early. You need PA to have a decent amount of Recharge to get it to be more tolerable.

 

This is incorrect. Illusion gets the bulk of it's kit **very** early. Phantom Army is what pushes it into hilarious levels, but this levelling scheme:

Blind, Radiant Aura, Spectral Wounds, Deceive, Accelerate Metabolism, Superior Invis

 

Gives you access to illusions ability to solo endlessly. PA accelerates that immensely and turns the danger button to "Off", but by level 8 you have everything you need. Including an aoe/self heal and a solid +recov/+recharge buff. The OP isn't going to be kitting the toon out, but illusion starts very good and moves into supreme tier with investment.

 

Also note that a no-aggro confuse is a life saver and provides 100% mitigation from trouble mobs. This is especially relevant in a small spawn setting which I assume is what a duo is going to be seeing.

 

Accelerate metabolism (even w/downtime) is also an immense help to early melee characters.

 

To the OP -- I would say give Illusion/Radiation a serious look for what you want.

[Without_Pause]

2 minutes ago, vibal said:

 

This is incorrect. Illusion gets the bulk of it's kit **very** early. Phantom Army is what pushes it into hilarious levels, but this levelling scheme:

Blind, Radiant Aura, Spectral Wounds, Deceive, Accelerate Metabolism, Superior Invis

I said nothing of Rad. Ill doesn't get its consistent AoE control until 22. It doesn't get Phant until 26. That right there is as bad as any other control set if not worse. Again, PA doesn't come until 18 and has serious downtime out of the box. SI is nice to have, but the bulk of Ill is had via its T7-T9.

[vibal]

7 hours ago, Without_Pause said:

I said nothing of Rad. Ill doesn't get its consistent AoE control until 22. It doesn't get Phant until 26. That right there is as bad as any other control set if not worse. Again, PA doesn't come until 18 and has serious downtime out of the box. SI is nice to have, but the bulk of Ill is had via its T7-T9.

But illusion plays consistently and contributes without PA. Tagging it as a late bloomer undermines what illusion is capable of sans PA, particularly in the case of a duo. I struggle to think of a controller that's going to bring more impact to the scenario described.

 

There's a lot more to the set despite it being flagged as a one trick pony.

[Ringo]

Illusion has three great powers  (Spectral Wounds, Blind, Deceive) that are a more powerful toolkit than any other control set gets in those first three picks.

 

Then it has three IO mule powers (Flash, Superior Invisibility, Group Invisibility) where other sets either catch up or surpass Illusion, followed by three more great powers.

 

Illusion gets the fastest start, most lackluster midgame, and then finally regains it's top of the class form after its final three powers are fully slotted.

 

As long as you're not fooled into using Flash, Illusion is top tier at low levels because you have three great tools and no reason not to immediately slot them out.  As much as Seeds of Confusion rules, nobody's super excited to slot out Roots and Strangler to support it.  

[Without_Pause]

15 hours ago, vibal said:

I struggle to think of a controller that's going to bring more impact to the scenario described.

 

57 minutes ago, Ringo said:

Illusion has three great powers  (Spectral Wounds, Blind, Deceive) that are a more powerful toolkit than any other control set gets in those first three picks.

You guys realize Mind exists? I have a Level 50 Ill/dark. I had and soloed a Mind/kin of Live. Saying there is nothing better early on than Ill is just outright ignorance. 

[vibal]

2 hours ago, Without_Pause said:

 

You guys realize Mind exists? 

I do realize, and certainly wouldn't trade the utility of capped stealth for a ST sleep.

[Ringo]

I actually forget that Mind Control exists quite often, my bad

[Without_Pause]

On 10/30/2024 at 1:51 PM, vibal said:

I do realize, and certainly wouldn't trade the utility of capped stealth for a ST sleep.

I would. Even adding in Mass Hyp shortly after. You negate alpha strike. You can sleep an ambush. If playing Gold side, those happen a lot. My Mind Controller was pulling off stuff my Ill would have struggled with or taken far longer to deal with in the early parts of the game. Add in the new TK and Mind is significantly better in the early part of the game. 

[Blue Note]

On 10/4/2024 at 9:21 PM, tidge said:

 

So they are teaming up, they are going to be two of them at x2. I agree that things should be a cakewalk; I'm going to step out of the recommendations here because if a player is playing a lot of alts, and none of them have gotten past 25, I kinda feel like the OP is playing the game a LOT differently than many of us. START was explicitly pointed out as something they wouldn't take advantage of.... so yeah, a solo controller without P2W attacks is going to be a little slow to complete content below level 16.

 

With the sorts of written constraints and my own reading-between-the-lines, I feel like a grindy pre-16 experience is what is in store... and the likely issues are going to be burning through endurance and missing attacks (they can't turn off Beginner's Luck!). I feel like the "try a Controller" is not even the right way to attack this. If the desire to test a Controller was the main driver, I feel like the other member of the team wouldn't be a Brute. As I wrote above, I don't even think Brutes are the simplest to play for a youngster. If they are prone to get upset when getting defeated, a Tanker is probably better. If they can emotionally handle defeats, a Scrapper or Blaster will give the Controller more of a chance to shine, plus offer the dopamine hits of finishing enemies off.

 

IMO, Controllers might be the AT that benefited most from the lowering of the levels for picking certain powers... but a player would have to go past level 25 to find out.

I’m curious to understand what “START” refers to?

[tidge]

17 minutes ago, Blue Note said:

I’m curious to understand what “START” refers to?

 

START, formerly P2W, is a vendor in the starter zones (and Pocket D) that sells a variety of things, some at no cost... including what was on Live "prestige attacks for subscribers".

[Blue Note]

2 hours ago, tidge said:

 

START, formerly P2W, is a vendor in the starter zones (and Pocket D) that sells a variety of things, some at no cost... including what was on Live "prestige attacks for subscribers".

Thanks for the clarification. Didn’t now they changed the vendors name since I left the game. Thinking to jump back in and started to browse the forums first. Learning a few new things 😎