DEFCON II: AFTERMATH — Do Controllers Still Outscale Defenders?

[Dark Current]

My reaction and analysis of the Scouring Sands 801 Trials team is now available for your entertainment:
 

 

Mission Overview

• Mission 1: 801.2 IC 6034 = 28 minutes
• Mission 2: 801.5 W IC 6035 = 42 minutes
• Mission 3: 801.6 PM7 IC 6041 = 38 minutes
• Mission 4: 801.8 NW IC 6089 = 62 minutes*

Total Time = 170 minutes

*Trial ended by team decision

4 Teammates: Vilemaiden (blaster), Badgerbear (tanker), Cassie Walker (VEAT Soldier), Nate Lightning (stalker)

 

 

 

 

 

Combined Defensive Insights

Scouring Sands is a controlled-chaos mid-range controller with highly predictable defensive behavior.

• His defeats, ally losses, damage intake, and hit frequency all scale linearly with mission duration.
• He maintains consistent positioning, leading to steady hit rates and proportional damage intake.
• He experiences no randomness — spikes correspond directly to mission pressure, especially in cramped scenarios.
• His survivability is stable, his risk exposure is shared across the team, and his resilience tracks evenly with hits.

This consistency under pressure makes him reliable in his chosen role, even though he willingly occupies a danger zone due to Fire/Storm mechanics.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Combined Offensive Insight

Scouring Sands is an escalating pressure-controller whose damage, controls, and disruption all intensify with mission difficulty.

• His total damage output accelerates dramatically in tougher missions, rising from ~2,000 dmg/min early to over ~5,600 dmg/min in the final mission.

• His control output surges in high-pressure encounters, jumping from ~48 controls/min early to over 150 controls/min as missions intensify.

• His damage scales almost perfectly with his control output, showing that disruption directly drives his offense rather than acting as a separate function.

• He maintains extremely high efficiency, dealing 13–18 times more personal damage than he takes, even as pressure increases.

He deals enormous damage through overlapping Fire/Storm effects, thrives during high-pressure windows, and maintains exceptional efficiency even under fire.

 

 

Combined Pet Insights

Scouring Sands’ pets are high-exposure, always-active pressure partners — absorbing most incoming fire, scaling their offense with his, and supplying steady attrition damage even as their efficiency stays low — making them reliable danger barometers and consistent contributors to his battlefield footprint

• Pets absorb the overwhelming majority of incoming pressure (≈80–88% of all damage on Scouring Sands’ side), making them high-exposure frontline units that consistently occupy danger zones.

• Pet performance scales tightly with mission intensity — their damage taken, damage dealt, and activity all rise in the same windows where Scouring Sands himself is under pressure (R² values 0.96–0.97).

• Pets contribute steady supplemental DPS (≈10–17% of total output), adding reliable attrition pressure even though their damage-per-damage-taken efficiency remains low (≈0.3–0.4).

 

 

The Big Picture!

Scouring Sands proves to be a pressure-driven, escalation-based controller whose offense, control, survivability, and pet synergy all intensify as missions grow more dangerous. His kit reaches peak performance in high-density, high-pressure environments, where Fire/Storm layering can operate at full magnitude.

1. His damage output accelerates dramatically in harder missions, doubling or tripling as encounters intensify (from ~2k to ~5.6k Dmg/min, R² = 0.88).

His kit thrives on chaos and density — his highest output occurs exactly where difficulty peaks.

2. His control saturation scales explosively with mission intensity, jumping from ~48 to 150–160 controls per minute (R² = 0.85).

Scouring Sands does not just “use more controls” in harder missions — he floods the battlefield with layered Storm and Fire effects, creating massive disruption fields.

3. His damage and controls are inseparable — nearly perfect correlation (R² = 0.99) proves he deals damage through disruption rather than alongside it.

Fire/Storm for him is a single, unified engine: the more he disrupts, the more he burns. There is no divide between CC and DPS.

4. He maintains exceptional personal efficiency, dealing 13–18× more damage than he takes, even in high-exposure positions (Character Effectiveness ratio avg ≈ 13.3, rising to 18.1).

He trades extraordinarily well for a controller — absorbing mid-range fire while massively out-damaging incoming threats.

5. His pets absorb ~80–88% of all damage taken on his side of the ledger, scaling their activity tightly with mission danger (R² = 0.96–0.97) and contributing steady supplemental DPS (10–17%).

They are durable, predictable, and fully synchronized with his tempo — frontline pressure partners that reveal danger windows and extend his damage field.