Fire / Marine / ? : What Epic should I aim for

[Carnifax]

Hey folks

 

So after trying out Storm / Marine & a brief Beta test of Dark / Marine (forgot how annoyingly noisy Barkley was : No Thank You) I came up with a good name and concept for Fire / Marine and am now in the Happy Zone (level 27+ is my happy place where I've got interesting powers and can start set-slotting) and loving it. 

 

So Waxwork is born, master of globs of molten wax. 

 

Aiming for a cheapish build to level, as I always do but the choices in Epics is throwing me. I've done 4 (yes I know) variant builds and would love to know what other folk have opted for. 

 

Earth :

Pros : Def shield. Lovely close combat attacks in Fissure and Seismic, both procced up. Seismic is a beast. 

Cons : Crap resists (but Marine does lots of -Dam so maybe there's synergy there). No End Recovery power. No real need for Earths Embrace. Not sure how invisible I can make Rock Armour (this is important for this character)

 

Mu : 

Pros : Great Resist shield to stack with Toroid, gives NRG resists and Rune of Protection. Ball Lightning is a fairly decent AoE. Power Sink is a non-proccable End tool but has a great recharge compared to other End tools. 

Con : No second Epic attack / AoE. 

 

Fire : 

Pros : Resist shield, Fireball is an excellent AoE. End recovery via Consume which is also very proccable. 

Cons : Resist shield not as good as Mu. Consume on a long cooldown.

 

Soul : 

Pros : Resist shield, Dark Oblit is an AoE which is VERY proccable, Dark Consumption is End recovery + proccable

Cons : Again resist shield isn't as good as Mu (Energy resists are great in end game). Dark Consumption on long cooldown. 

 

So all you Fire / Marines what did you go for and anything in these builds you'd tweak (or anything else really)

 

 

Controller (Fire Control - Marine Affinity - Soul).mbd Controller (Fire Control - Marine Affinity - Earth).mbd Controller (Fire Control - Marine Affinity - Fire).mbd Controller (Fire Control - Marine Affinity - Mu).mbd

[Auroxis]

I went Mace on mine for the Achilles' procced Poisonous Ray (to get more DPS out of shifting tides procs) and FFB procced Disruptor Beam, but looking back I'd go Earth instead. Fissure applies its damage faster, and provides a more steady source of FFB procs for a very strong AoE chain alongside Whitecap. And Seismic is a great boost for your personal DPS. The only downside is Rock Armor FX.

[Carnifax]

How's your Endurance? That's the main reason I skipped Mace (plus I'm not fond of the mace animation). 

 

Earths two attacks are so good on Meleetrollers and feel so satisfying. But I suspect Rock Armour is going to be the killer (works with the costumes on the two Controllers I have it on but don't think it will here sadly). 

[tidge]

For concept, and what it offers, I think Earth. You should be able to recolor some of the Earth powers to fit. with a Marine secondary, Leviathan mastery is pretty reasonable IMO. With some slots, both Bile Spray and Water Spout can be made to work for Controllers, Hibernate can mule the %Absorb piece and Shark Skin can mule Resistance pieces.

 

Typically: My Controllers don't have many slots available for powers when the Epic/Patrons become available. As a result, I usually consider those for what powers offer me the chance to mule enhancements and/or enhancement sets. Psionic often gets tapped for these on my builds for this reason.

[Auroxis]

1 hour ago, Carnifax said:

How's your Endurance? That's the main reason I skipped Mace (plus I'm not fond of the mace animation). 

 

Earths two attacks are so good on Meleetrollers and feel so satisfying. But I suspect Rock Armour is going to be the killer (works with the costumes on the two Controllers I have it on but don't think it will here sadly). 

Endurance is tight, but I went through enough iterations to get it stable with Musc and without Ageless. Requires steady casting of Toroidal Bubble but that's not too big of a deal.

[Onlyasandwich]

I agree with @tidge on Earth - you could probably recolor it to be sort of like hardened wax (maybe not all their wax is molten yet? :D).

 

There is good merit in the extra resist stacking from a resist shield. However, barrier reef also provides a meaningful baseline to make rock armor more impactful, especially if you hit a few extra S/L bonuses throughout. The attacks are my favorite out of any controller APP.

 

Fire would be pretty thematic, but the only star here is Fireball. The shield is fine, Rise is neat, and Consume is very much a side-show. Hardly worth investing procs into it or even relying on it for end given the super long recharge.

 

Leviathan could also go in theme quite well in a similar vein to the Marine powers (swirling molten wax). The resist shield is pretty standard, Water Spout is outstanding, and Bile Spray would look super cool (spray all that wax everywhere!). There's something very viscerally satisfying spitting my attack out of my mouth. Hibernate is an excellent one slot wonder that can mule your PM proc if needed. The Coralax is also one of the highest damaging pets out there if you can keep it alive, though it would be a bit of a stretch to call it a wax creation.

 

Mu is always good for the reasons you noted. Theme might not be strong here though. It's sort of my default when I'm not super inspired elsewhere.

 

Psi could stretch to the theme pretty well I think. I'd skip the blast and just go for indom will, mind over body, psi nado. Indom will is the real difference maker here, especially if you're juicing recharge through FFback. The extra lotg doesn't hurt either.

 

The main draw of Soul Mastery for me would be Soul Drain. This pairs nicely with the fact that you're splashing in with whitecap and have hot feet rolling anyhow. Dark Consumption is rather like Consume for me. Not a priority pick, but a nice button to hit once in a blue moon if I need a refill. Nothing to be relied on.  I see your Soul build skips Soul Drain. In my opinion, this misses the main strength of the pool. You could easily swap Dark Consumption for it. Even if you are leaning on it primarily for procs, it will rotate in more often, as well as provide a strong buff thereafter.

 

It's a hard choice for sure! If it were my own build, fire would probably be the lowest of the options above. I'd probably end up with either Leviathan for wax spewing fun or Soul for the damage buff.

 

Mace is cool and fine. I almost never take it these days unless I'm not wanting epic attacks, as the theme is just super limiting. I wish there was an option other than saluting the universe with a big stick.

 

If you're incorporating Arcane Bolt as I see you are, it's a shame not to lean on it for procs as well, especially FFback and the Purple damage proc.

 

 

Edited Thursday at 02:19 PM by Onlyasandwich

[Carnifax]

Thanks all. Maybe I'm over-worrying about End woes in general. With reason : I did a Fire / NRG Dom a couple of years ago and ended up abandoning them mid-40s because the End woes were so bad. I mean utterly crippling, even with everything I could slotted in. 

 

My own choice initially was Earth because I love the Fissure Stomp and Seismic Slam so much (going all the way back to Live with a Fire/Rad/Earth controller). So maybe stick with that is the answer. 

[Onlyasandwich]

30 minutes ago, Carnifax said:

End woes

 

I don't think you're totally off base to worry here, as both Hot Feet and Shifting tides are pretty expensive, and you'll be throwing plenty of pricey clickies.

 

However, between Toroidal, Depths, and IO end support, I think you'll be pretty workable. Marine's end tools are not exactly Kin or Cold, but pretty strong. Upside to earth - more spots for FFback, and therefore more uptime for Depths!

Edited Thursday at 02:52 PM by Onlyasandwich

[tidge]

w.r.t. Hot Feet... this is one of those PBAoE toggles that initially looks appealing to me, but in practice is something I find very hard to make work without a lot of slots (for the entire build, if not the PBAoE toggle itself). These sorts of powers have lots of theoretical uses, but in practice don't pan out well for me. YMMV. Once of the competing issues I've found with such powers is that enemy critters are often too spread out (by their nature and/or by application of controls) that their isn't as much return for the (Endurance, slots) choice to use the PBAoE toggle as opposed to investing in some other power.

 

I've taken it, but it was never something I used semi-regularly until near end-build... by then I have the slots and I can turn up spawn sizes.

[Carnifax]

16 minutes ago, tidge said:

I've taken it, but it was never something I used semi-regularly until near end-build... by then I have the slots and I can turn up spawn sizes.

It's my most damaging power pre-Imps, even solo running at 0/0 (don't judge me) doing the Keith whathisface Arc in Steel. So it's definitely worth it for me, Ice Mistrals is a great set for it. But definitely worried about it + Shifting + AoEs (I haven't taken Fire Cages though and thats an End killer. I prefer to not root the spawn in place).

 

Plus it's part of my costume (Hotfeet + Toroidal + the Bubbles path aura gives me a nice Lava Lamp feel). 

 

I've fond Live memories of using it to hunt Blue and Green spawns in Hazard Zones when my Fire/Rad was young, popping the flurry of Insps to keep me going (proto-farming?)

Edited Thursday at 03:20 PM by Carnifax

[SeraphimKensai]

@Carnifax I just made one of these the other day. I ended up going with Mace primarily to have an extra source of -res & -def to stack with the source of those I get in the power sets kit with IOs. I built around the scorp shield defense wise.

 

I don't have a lot of playtime with it as of yet though.

[tidge]

5 minutes ago, Carnifax said:

It's my most damaging power pre-Imps, even solo running at 0/0 (don't judge me)

 

I pass no judgement! I usually bridge those low levels with temporary attacks from START. They are also endurance hogs, but I feel like I have more agency.

 

My comment was made more of a general observation on enemy-affecting PBAoE toggles. There are some that work for me, many more that do not (especially on squishier characters). Minimally I find that they need to be slotted for both Accuracy and Endurance Reduction before even considering whatever the actual effect of them is supposed to be!

[SeraphimKensai]

15 minutes ago, tidge said:

I usually bridge those low levels with temporary attacks from START. They are also endurance hogs, but I feel like I have more agency.

Might as well keep stun grenades in the rotation through the toon's whole life given it's a nice stun mag stack with Flashfire.

[Frosticus]

Earth and dark for personal damage 

Mace for personal+ pet damage and overall utility.

 

Not exactly the same needs but i went mace on my ill/Marine. Disruptor blast hits much harder than fissure and you shouldn't need to cycle your aoe attack twice against the same spawn solo or teamed. 

Focused acc allows more proc opportunities. 

Poison ray passes seismic/midnight grasp very quickly if you have multiple damage sources, although not nearly as satisfying to use.

Scorp shield is much better than rock armor and looks like waves 

[kelika2]

god damn i never even considered fire/marine controller

 

all that marine +end and stuff and slotting fire control for damage sounds insane.

[SeraphimKensai]

8 hours ago, kelika2 said:

god damn i never even considered fire/marine controller

 

all that marine +end and stuff and slotting fire control for damage sounds insane.

It's pretty fun, especially in high stacked shifting tides. Layering that with lots of -resistances, and brine for EBs/AVs things melt pretty fast.

[Carnifax]

19 hours ago, SeraphimKensai said:

It's pretty fun, especially in high stacked shifting tides. Layering that with lots of -resistances, and brine for EBs/AVs things melt pretty fast.

It really is. On 8 man teams Hotfeet, Shifting + Imps are tied 3 ways for damage (well Imps are slightly more). Tides is exceptional on big teams. 

 

I'm up to level 37 now and the decision was made. Ended up going Soul, mainly because the resist shields don't mess up my costume look. Tried others on Beta but disliked how they interfered. 

 

Replenishing Absorb shield + Resists is a pretty nice combo anyway so not crippling myself with the decision and I think Earth would have murdered my Blue Bar. 

[SeraphimKensai]

7 hours ago, Carnifax said:

I'm up to level 37 now and the decision was made. Ended up going Soul, mainly because the resist shields don't mess up my costume look. Tried others on Beta but disliked how they interfered. 

 

Replenishing Absorb shield + Resists is a pretty nice combo anyway so not crippling myself with the decision and I think Earth would have murdered my Blue Bar. 

That's gotta be pretty tanky. I built a around typed defense myself with a scorpion shield as I targeted poisonous ray to stack better -res/-def.