Looking for Grav/Traps Advice

[Petrograd]

Hey folks, I recently made my first troller, a Grav/Traps, and without much thought I've taken nearly every power in both sets.

I was wondering what y'all thought were the key/best powers, or how you generally play this combo if you do.

As a side note, I've noticed that when I Wormhole enemies onto my traps, Singularity has a bad habit of blowing them all away before the mines go off. I'm considering slotting a KB->Knockdown into Singularity, but I also like not dying from stacks of melee enemies, so I'm a bit torn. Do y'all think it's worth slotting KB->KD, or would that even work?

Edit: Also, what Pool powers or Epic powers are worth taking? Thanks.

Edited April 8 by Petrograd

[Carnifax]

Propel is a fun power but it's slow. Honestly Lift is the better choice. Hard to give up Propel though as it's so much fun. 

 

Dimensional Shift is VERY situational (still). You run the risk of ruining a Blasters day by having them outside the bubble firing in. 

 

On Traps the key powers are Acid Mortar, FFG, Poison Trap and now Temporal Bomb. I like Trip Mine too for toe-bombing, it hits hard. Since you have a choice of 1st secondary now I'd skip Web Grenade for Caltrops. Seekers are okay. 

 

I'd definitely give Singy a kb2kd. Flinging things everywhere is annoying and if Singy is on a Burn patch / caltrops patch they might barrel away. 

 

The single best pool power for a Traps generally is Fold Space. I have on both my Ice / Traps controller and Thugs / Traps MM and it's hilarity. Grav it's not as important because you have Wormhole so you have breathing room there (my Grav is Grav/Trick Arrow and lobbing a spawn into Oil Slick is great fun). 

 

Recharge is really important for Traps so slot for recharge bonuses, get Hasten (and Temporal Bomb). 

 

Epic wise I like Earth for the s/l shield to go with FFG, Fissure with procs to stack stuns on top of Wormhole and Seismic Smash procced up as the hardest hitting power a Controller can have. Earths Embrace can give you a nice chunk of HP too so well worth it. 

 

Mace is another good one as the shield is great and Poison Ray is excellent too with procs in it (it also does -Def and -Resist so it's really good). 

 

Proc up Poison Trap, Fissure and Seismic. Procs won't work on explody Traps things, so no point proccing Trip Mine or Seekers, sadly. Seismic with 2 purple procs in it is NASTY. If it doesn't murder the boss it'll still hold them. 

 

 

 

 

[twozerofoxtrot]

6 hours ago, Petrograd said:

I've noticed that when I Wormhole enemies onto my traps, Singularity has a bad habit of blowing them all away before the mines go off. I'm considering slotting a KB->Knockdown into Singularity, but I also like not dying from stacks of melee enemies, so I'm a bit torn.

 

Not just Singularity, but Wormhole and the Trip Mine all have substantial knockback that needs to be turned into knockdown for this to work.

 

• Definitely add KB > KD to Wormhole, and if budget allows 5-slot Absolute Amazement as well (skip the proc) to get a ton of stun + really good recharge bonus (as @Carnifax correctly mentions, it is important.
• Definitely add KB > KD to Singularity. This will not impact its area control. Will not. Due to Singularity's reversed repel that draws enemies towards the center, mobs are constantly being hoovered away from you and often locked up by Singy's holds or just thrown on their butts. Grav is my favorite control set. I have it on quite a few combos (including this exact one!) and Singularity always requires at a minimum KB > KD to work well. Otherwise it is a total goat rope.
• Finally, add specifically Overwhelming Force's KB > KD to Trip Mine. If you only slot one enhancement into this power, it should be this.

Personally, I disagree with Carnifax's suggestion to pick up Poison Ray and proc it. Generally speaking it's not bad advice, but unless you're trying to explicitly make -Res debuff your gimmick on this character, then it's not really worth the power or slot investment. And as you've hinted at in your first post, you're feeling tight on slots and powers. Acid Mortar can constantly stack debuffs in a wide area while you do other things. And you will be busy with a Grav/Traps.

Also I personally value putting procs in Gravity Distortion over other powers. You can get a lot of consistent single target damage this way, have a lot of damage procs from the Hold sets to choose from, and a lot of them are going to be working for you at lower levels. Can you get big booms out of a proc'd poison trap? Yes. Can you do it every 3 seconds? Probably not.

 

Finally I think the single best pool power for Gravity is Teleport Target. Similar but different logic than Carnifax put forth for Fold Space and Traps; you absolutely want to be able to control exactly where your Singularity is. I always make a macro (or bind) that goes like this:

/macro ToMe "$$powexeclocation me teleport target$$Petselectname Singularity"

Press this macro once to select your Singy, then again to teleport it right on top of you. The design of the macro can be adjusted to teleport it a certain distance in front of you, above, behind, or even if your Singy has a different name than the default.

[BZRKR]

Wormhole loves a KB>KD IO and binds to make it less fiddly to use in the heat of combat. Here are some wormhole binds I have used in the Mothership Raid and regular content.

This should drop the targets 10 units (this number can be tweaked) in front of the caster:

/bind <key> "powexeclocation 0:10 Wormhole"

 

This puts them way above you (it's raining Rikti!)

/bind <key> "powexeclocation up:Max Wormhole"

 

This one throws them away in the direction your camera faces (like how you target Vorpal)

/bind <key> "powexeclocation cam:max Wormhole"

 

This should put the targets far away, wherever the cursor is pointing:

/bind <key> "powexeclocation cursor:max Wormhole"

[Petrograd]

Thank you all, this is very helpful!

Are there any powers in gravity that are skippable, in your opinion? I feel like I don't use Crush or Crushing Field much (my single-target rotation is Gravity Distortion, Lift, and Propel, and multitarget I'm usually dropping traps), and I feel like I don't really understand how to use Dimension Shift.

Edited April 9 by Petrograd

[Carnifax]

2 hours ago, Petrograd said:

Thank you all, this is very helpful!

Are there any powers in gravity that are skippable, in your opinion? I feel like I don't use Crush or Crushing Field much (my single-target rotation is Gravity Distortion, Lift, and Propel, and multitarget I'm usually dropping traps), and I feel like I don't really understand how to use Dimension Shift.

Dimensional Shift is definitely skippable. It's VERY niche and your team need to understand it and not be trying to lob shots into it (pets won't understand it either for example). I've never seen it used well on a PuG. 

 

Crushing Field is also skippable imo. Crush / single target immobs I like for keeping AVs in one spot. It's also mag 4 so will immob a boss in one cast, setting up Containment.