Critique my Symp DA controller please :)

[Drewbeezy09]

I played back in the day and came back and took a little break. Haven't played since the new power set. I wanted to see how my Sypm DA stacks up and what changes I should I make. I mainly solo, but do occasionally runsome ITF teams. A differnt question could this thign ever solo AV's? I don't think so, since i don't have a lot of - res. 

SYMPH DA Controller.mbd

Edited November 8 by Drewbeezy09

[Warshades]

DA in general has a pretty easy time soloing AVs. It may not be as quick as something like /cold for example, but it makes up for it with all the other amazing tools that it has and provides higher survivability with access to a heal, Fade, and Shadow Fall. Howling Twilight is an amazing -500% regen power which should only have a 15 second downtime if you slot the build for high global recharge, which is a big help for AV fights while pairing with the -res from Tar Patch. You also get a great heal (though it does have an accuracy check) and good damage debuff from Darkest Night. The only thing you'll need to worry about is the aggro that you'll have at the start of a fight which you should be able to work around using lore pets and pulling around corner with DN and into Tar Patch. 

 

I've not played symphony control before so not familiar in what powers it has or what it excels at. My main controller is ill/dark which does have the help of perma PA for extra dmg and aggro in AV fights.

 

Edit: I can take a look at the build after I get off work.

Edited November 10 by Warshades

[Wimbochismo]

I checked the build out and sat with it a bit. It's not a bad build, it just needs some shift in focus. There's a couple of pitfalls that you fell into like Twilight Grasp needing accuracy and not the full Prev Med set. So long as you keep up with Soul Absorption your end management is actually way overshot and you could move some end management slots. You're also missing out on lots of the procs that help elevate Controller damage.

 

While reviewing it I had to make a ton of small changes to shift slots around. It's a bit too much to break down everything I did, so I'll attach the edited build at the end. The build is largely the same, I'd just encourage you to look at the before/after side-by-side. I also reorganized some powers just so that you have the impactful powers earlier. Kick/Tough/Weave I usually save at the end of a build etc. It feels dirty but I left Hasten 3 slotted to take you from 121.7s recharge - 119.2s perma to smooth it out.

 

I'll give a quick breakdown on changes you needed:

• Twilight Grasp needs accuracy.
• Confounding Chant needs tons of accuracy, even with what I put together it's still around 85% vs +3 mobs.
• You need a Kismet +acc.
• If you want to do decent single target dmg you need to proc Hymn of Dissonance and Impassioned Serenade with ideally no recharge added.
• Coming in slightly under 45% melee def won't make or break your build. You could lose an Unbreakable Guard 4 set. Symph/DA is also more of a ranged power combination.
• Frozen Armor isn't much more than a LotG mule and some resists for this build.

This build should have all of the tools you need to solo AV's. It may not be super fast but it should get the job done well enough. One thing that will make your life easier is having a full single target attack chain. For general purpose grouping here I would consider Ice Blast as the dmg is immediate and impactful. If you want to solo AV's I would consider Melodic Binding instead as a way to help set up immobilize containment. The dmg just comes in as a dot so it's not as great for groups.

SYMPH DA Controller edit.mbd

[tidge]

I find tackling AVs solo to be such a slog, I'm impressed when players set out to do it with something like a Controller... especially without Incarnates.

 

I want to say I had a Dark/Dark Controller that was able to beat at least one, hold off others, but fell to many... before I stopped trying. The biggest issue I remember was reliable/correct damage typing for the different AVs.

[Warshades]

For more damage against AVs, I'd suggest going for mace mastery epic. It actually helps in 2 ways; Poisonous Ray for more -res and Focused Accuracy to help with some of the low accuracy powers that Symphony seems to have. You could go for Coercive Confusion set in Impassioned Serenade to be able to eventually perma confuse AVs, but it does deal damage so you can't stack spam it and engage after AV is confused. This build is a little bit off from perma hasten, but should be close within range if you use ageless core destiny. Not sure how it will play out for an AV fight, but I think you should manage to eventually bring them down.

 

I did drop Aria of Stasis, not as useful as Melodic Binding for AV fights. Again, I've never played Symphony Control so take this build with a grain of salt and test it out first on the test server to see if it works well. Best of luck!

Controller (Symphony Control - Darkness Affinity).mbd

[Drewbeezy09]

On 11/10/2024 at 5:48 AM, Warshades said:

 The only thing you'll need to worry about is the aggro that you'll have at the start of a fight which you should be able to work around using lore pets and pulling around corner with DN and into Tar Patch. 

 

 

Thank you for that been busy with work and conference out of state. Back to coh this weekend. I will watch how I begin fights to not over extend and get over whelmed by baddies. 

[Drewbeezy09]

On 11/10/2024 at 9:29 AM, Wimbochismo said:

This build should have all of the tools you need to solo AV's. It may not be super fast but it should get the job done well enough. 

SYMPH DA Controller edit.mbd 41.02 kB · 9 downloads

That was a lot to unpack, but damn that was really helpful. I tend to worry about not having enough endo, So thanks for that adjustment you recommend. I also wasn’t aware of acc checks for either of the outlined powers. Thanks for you explanation of adjustments. 

[Drewbeezy09]

On 11/10/2024 at 9:48 AM, tidge said:

I find tackling AVs solo to be such a slog, I'm impressed when players set out to do it with something like a Controller... especially without Incarnates.

I’ll let you know how it goes. 

[tidge]

I peeked at the build, just to check how the pets were slotted... I would do them slightly differently.

 

For Reverberant, I have a Symponic Controller that is going to use this as the final (level 50) slotting:

• Soulbound Allegiance: Accuracy/Recharge (boosted)
• Soulbound Allegiance: Accuracy/Damage/Recharge (boosted)
• Soulbound Allegiance: Damage/Endurance (boosted)
• Unbreakable Constraint: %Smashing
• Hami-O Accuracy/Mezz (53)
• Hami-O Damage/Mezz (53)

I want to note a few things about my choices.

 

I consider the little bit (6.25% or 7.5%) of possible global recharge (from Expedient Reinforcement, or Basilisk's Gaze) to be somewhat minor in the greater scheme of things, considering how relatively easy it is to add 7.5% from LotG. Once I was ok to NOT chase a global recharge bonus, I landed on the choices above.

 

That slotting IS deep in the ED range for Accuracy and Damage, but Accuracy is especially important, Recharge is a big help, and some of the Reverberant's attacks will do better damage than my Controller can do (for my chosen slotting of powers).

 

The Hami-O (or D-Syncs) are the only way to have a Control boost that works for whatever control the Reverberant is echoing. I will go for 'balance' between Accuracy and Damage.

 

The %damage piece was chosen from a Hold set, for three reasons:

1. My controller tends to spam the single-target hold Hymn of Dissonance, so that is what the Reverberant uses most often.
2. As a very rare %proc, it has the largest possible damage, and the best possible proc chance.
3. It is a different type of damage than Psychic.

I did some testing with an immobilize %damage proc, but generally I wasn't seeing as good a yield from it in the Reverberant, even with it being an AoE. I haven't done full testing at x8, but based on the AI of the Reverberant, I think the single-target option is better. It should also have a chance to fire when Chords of Despair is echoed.

 

For Dark Servant, I (almost) almost always go with:

• Cloud Senses: Accuracy/-ToHit
• Cloud Senses: Accuracy/Recharge
• Cloud Senses: Accuracy/Endurance/Recharge
• Cloud Senses: %Negative
• Hami-O Accuracy/Mezz (53)
• Trap of the Hunter: %Lethal

The final slot isn't that important, something different could be done with it, or be dropped. I went with the potential for AoE %damage for the Dark Servant to maybe draw more attention to itself. The Hami-O is included for the reasons listed above, plus the Cloud Senses set is only level range 10-30 so moar accuracy. I always keep the Cloud Senses set attuned (for low-level accuracy bonus), but if you are not playing low level content, the first three of those pieces could be boosted to 30+5 I suppose.

 

 

[Psyonico]

20 minutes ago, tidge said:

Hami-O (or D-Syncs) are the only way to have a Control boost that works for whatever control the Reverberant is echoing.

 

I think you can slot the controller ATOs into Reverberant.  I'd agree that the Hami-Os are the most slot efficient (and cheapest) way to slot it though.

[tidge]

1 hour ago, Psyonico said:

 

I think you can slot the controller ATOs into Reverberant.  I'd agree that the Hami-Os are the most slot efficient (and cheapest) way to slot it though.

 

I couldn't slot the ATOs in the pet.

[Psyonico]

14 minutes ago, tidge said:

 

I couldn't slot the ATOs in the pet.

I had the thought that you could, but had never tried to, myself.  Thanks for the correction.

[Wimbochismo]

22 hours ago, tidge said:

The final slot isn't that important, something different could be done with it, or be dropped.

 

For Dark Servant, if possible I usually try to add a regular 50+5 Heal.

 

I'm not sure if Controller DS numbers differ from Defender - in City of Data the links lead to the same page. On my Defender DS's Twilight Grasp heals for 250 a pop, it should be around 188 base. It can help elevate its numbers and it often covers most healing needs.

[Bionic_Flea]

Here's mine.  I take a slightly different tack to most on Symphony -- I slot for range.  A few sets of Bombardment, Intuition Radial, and Clarion Radial and I can make those cones hit from 154 feet away, scaling down to 98 feet when Clarion is down.  I also slot Confounding Chant with Frozen Blast set so I get Stun + Immob, which is a poor man's AoE hold.  Similarly, the Aria of Stasis immob gets a set of Overpowering Presence and the Font adds a stun.  When stuff is locked down I can hit them with Frost Breath and Ice Storm while Fluffy and the Rev have their way with them.

 

 

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[Meknomancer]

On 11/24/2024 at 6:01 PM, Bionic_Flea said:

Here's mine.  I take a slightly different tack to most on Symphony -- I slot for range.  A few sets of Bombardment, Intuition Radial, and Clarion Radial and I can make those cones hit from 154 feet away, scaling down to 98 feet when Clarion is down.  I also slot Confounding Chant with Frozen Blast set so I get Stun + Immob, which is a poor man's AoE hold.  Similarly, the Aria of Stasis immob gets a set of Overpowering Presence and the Font adds a stun.  When stuff is locked down I can hit them with Frost Breath and Ice Storm while Fluffy and the Rev have their way with them.

 

 

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Kind of curious how that plays, you have massive downtime on hasten/fade/soul absorb. What do you do when all 3 are down? 

[Bionic_Flea]

I’m still traveling from Thanksgiving, so I can’t look at Mids or my character, but it played fine to me. I did consider adding recharge somehow but could not decide on what to sacrifice to get it. I may have traded attuned IOs for +5 boosted ones on some of those.