Help me decide my new troller between Elec and Fire Control; paired with Rad, Nature, or Marine.

[SeraphimKensai]

Greetings,

 

I'm trying to decide my next controller between the subject sets. I'm open to a lot of build flexibility and have currently 4 elec control toons and 4 fire control toons. I've been stirring with the idea of combining either control set with these support sets. What should I make and why?

 

Thank you.

[Death2Tyrants]

Depends on the role you want to play. Any of those work since you don't care about damage. For me I've been happier with any Fire/ > Elec/ and any /Marine > /Nature > /Rad. There are some situations where that ranking will be changed and favor a different order outside of general play e.g. /Rad is great vs hard targets. IMO any of the /Nature builds have the highest potential to serve a team as the sole support character.

 

Fire/ choices are all fine with Fire/Marine being very strong out of the gate even without sets. It is a well rounded pairing and has some +End to support use of HF early. It was a fairly smooth ride and can handle packs of +4s around the midgame without breaking a sweat.

 

Fire/Nature works surprisingly well with the two auras rewarding melee range play with many great team support powers. /Nature is just a well designed set IMO.

 

Fire/Rad is a classic but the squishiest of the bunch. If you are trying to work in pool powers this is probably your best option since the other secondary sets have fewer skippable powers IMO. /Rad has many throwaways. The big sell with this is AM and the two toggles that significantly weaken hard targets.

 

Not a big fan of Elec/ in general but Elec/Rad and Elec/Nature are your better options for playing in melee. Only matters if you plan to build for -End and leverage your aura in a -End layered approach. IMO of the two Elec/Nature is your better option if you want to lean into your primary more since you can buff up before fights and control during the engagement.

 

Elec/Marine had the best overall control feel since you are gaining slows and more KDs which brings a touch more synergy to the pair. After applying your -RES via Whitecap you can play mostly at range if you wish where the other two Elec/ pairs felt like a waste of potential not playing in melee with double control auras.

 

Ultimately I vote for Fire/Marine which gave me the best play through experience. This pair earned a spot in my main Controller rotation, The other Fire/s are ok pair but didn't give me the wow factor like Fire/Marine did.

 

I think Elec/Rad has some great potential as does Fire/Rad but you basically have to commit to a good Defensive IO build to squeeze the potential out.

 

You can always run over to Brainstorm and trick out all six builds to see which you like.

[SeraphimKensai]

1 hour ago, Death2Tyrants said:

Depends on the role you want to play. Any of those work since you don't care about damage. For me I've been happier with any Fire/ > Elec/ and any /Marine > /Nature > /Rad. There are some situations where that ranking will be changed and favor a different order outside of general play e.g. /Rad is great vs hard targets. IMO any of the /Nature builds have the highest potential to serve a team as the sole support character.

 

Fire/ choices are all fine with Fire/Marine being very strong out of the gate even without sets. It is a well rounded pairing and has some +End to support use of HF early. It was a fairly smooth ride and can handle packs of +4s around the midgame without breaking a sweat.

 

Fire/Nature works surprisingly well with the two auras rewarding melee range play with many great team support powers. /Nature is just a well designed set IMO.

 

Fire/Rad is a classic but the squishiest of the bunch. If you are trying to work in pool powers this is probably your best option since the other secondary sets have fewer skippable powers IMO. /Rad has many throwaways. The big sell with this is AM and the two toggles that significantly weaken hard targets.

 

Not a big fan of Elec/ in general but Elec/Rad and Elec/Nature are your better options for playing in melee. Only matters if you plan to build for -End and leverage your aura in a -End layered approach. IMO of the two Elec/Nature is your better option if you want to lean into your primary more since you can buff up before fights and control during the engagement.

 

Elec/Marine had the best overall control feel since you are gaining slows and more KDs which brings a touch more synergy to the pair. After applying your -RES via Whitecap you can play mostly at range if you wish where the other two Elec/ pairs felt like a waste of potential not playing in melee with double control auras.

 

Ultimately I vote for Fire/Marine which gave me the best play through experience. This pair earned a spot in my main Controller rotation, The other Fire/s are ok pair but didn't give me the wow factor like Fire/Marine did.

 

I think Elec/Rad has some great potential as does Fire/Rad but you basically have to commit to a good Defensive IO build to squeeze the potential out.

 

You can always run over to Brainstorm and trick out all six builds to see which you like.

Thanks for the insight. I've honestly been leaning fire/marine and elec/rad.

 

I figure shifting tides would work nicely with three imps, and help give them more resilience. TB would definitely help with running HF. All the buffs/debuffs seems very appealing to fire control, and smoke helps control when the engagement begins. I've only played Marine to T4 on a Necro/Marine MM.

 

If I do the elec/rad (which I had the defender version of rad/elec on live which I loved) I'd build for melee and probably go Mu Mastery as power sink, charged armor and ball lightning would help out the build.

 

Knowing me chances are I might just make more than 1 as leveling isn't near the chore as it used to be. Otherwise I have enough IOs in my storage to outfit whatever I make as I go.

[Uun]

I've got a Fire/Nature which I really enjoy. Stacking Hot Feet and Entangling Aura is lovely, but having a means of buffing the Imps is also very useful (they still die a lot). 

 

Electric plays more like Plant, in that it relies on confuse, but the confuse is a chain so a bit more fiddly. The Gremlins have the same AI as the Imps and really need to be buffed to stay alive. Of the 3 sets you mention I would lean toward Nature (haven't played Marine yet). I've done Electric/Dark, which works really well.

[Death2Tyrants]

Just now, SeraphimKensai said:

Thanks for the insight. I've honestly been leaning fire/marine and elec/rad.

 

I figure shifting tides would work nicely with three imps, and help give them more resilience. TB would definitely help with running HF. All the buffs/debuffs seems very appealing to fire control, and smoke helps control when the engagement begins. I've only played Marine to T4 on a Necro/Marine MM.

 

If I do the elec/rad (which I had the defender version of rad/elec on live which I loved) I'd build for melee and probably go Mu Mastery as power sink, charged armor and ball lightning would help out the build.

 

Knowing me chances are I might just make more than 1 as leveling isn't near the chore as it used to be. Otherwise I have enough IOs in my storage to outfit whatever I make as I go.

No worries. My pleasure.

 

I think your assumptions are correct.

 

Fire/Marine is one of the smoothest 1 to 50s I've played recently.

 

Elec/Rad seems pretty rare and you might cook up a build that performs well for you.

 

My Elec/Rad basically turned into a meme build  when I made the odd design choice to go all in on the Fighting Pool. I dipped into all three attacks for the synergy and the -End Fatigue effects; nothing to write home about but this is how I entertain myself these days.

 

Your choice of /Mu over my /Fire is probably the better choice to neuter end out of the gate and increase survivability. I certainly think Elec/Rad has some potential with a proper build. For me the baseline performance didn't wow me enough to cook up a build for it and take it to the next level of potential.

[SeraphimKensai]

1 hour ago, Uun said:

I've got a Fire/Nature which I really enjoy. Stacking Hot Feet and Entangling Aura is lovely, but having a means of buffing the Imps is also very useful (they still die a lot). 

 

I've done Electric/Dark, which works really well.

The fire/nature seemed like it would be a decent pairing, but I'm still up in the air about it. Maybe Ice/Nature?

 

Elec/Dark is pretty fun, I have one of those a long with an Elec/Cold, and an Elec/Poison.

[Death2Tyrants]

2 hours ago, SeraphimKensai said:

 Maybe Ice/Nature?

I leveled mine before the last Ice Control buff and before they power availability changes. It performed well enough but at the time I committed to my Ice/Poison build just for the snorts and giggles. I could see Ice/NA aggressively played with the sets improvements.

Edited January 6 by Death2Tyrants

[SeraphimKensai]

So I've made a fire/marine controller, and spent the majority of my play time over the weekend leveling him up, he's just under 45 ATM, so I anticipate 50 before the end of the week, depending on how much time I get to play. I put my theory crafting hat on for this one and I'm definitely liking the stacked sources of -res, -dam, and -def. I went with black scorpion for a procd out poisonous ray to further stack.

 

Shifting Tides, Soulbound in imps, and all the -res makes the little imps hit pretty hard (especially using brine early off to soften hard targets).

 

Only issue is I couldn't fit a travel power. So this thing is on a cosmic surfboard.

 

So far definitely liking the combo, and figure it's going to really be fun when I get it fully online with my final IO sets, HOs, and Incarnates.

Edited January 14 by SeraphimKensai

[kelika2]

Old-ish thread but im bored

try fire/rad.  Choking Cloud is insane on a controller.  it can and will replace Cinders

Holding bosses instantly-enough because of Char and Choking

then all the little dot damage all over the place from rings, char, bonfire and so on adds up.  slot for tohit debuff at first and when you get to 47 slap 3 enzyme hamis in it and just be awesome after that

[SeraphimKensai]

17 minutes ago, kelika2 said:

Old-ish thread but im bored

try fire/rad.  Choking Cloud is insane on a controller.  it can and will replace Cinders

Holding bosses instantly-enough because of Char and Choking

then all the little dot damage all over the place from rings, char, bonfire and so on adds up.  slot for tohit debuff at first and when you get to 47 slap 3 enzyme hamis in it and just be awesome after that

The thread isn't that old, it's ~10 days old. Anyways I've personally done fire/rad just not since the days of having 12-15 fire imps running in tow. 

 

I agree about stacking choking cloud with ST Holds on controllers. My old guild used quite a few grav/rad controllers to stack holds from ST, Choking Cloud and Sing for stacking mag on Hami as a previous strategy when we privately raided.