Controller procs

[Lafoote]

So I've got Fossilize and Volcanic Gasses slated for the Controller Enhancement Sets.  Which one should get Psionic Damage, and which should get the Font?

[Maelwys]

18 hours ago, Lafoote said:

So I've got Fossilize and Volcanic Gasses slated for the Controller Enhancement Sets.  Which one should get Psionic Damage, and which should get the Font?

Fossilize should get the Psi damage Proc; and the Font should go in the bin.

Volcanic Gasses spawns pseudopets; but there are multiple copies of them that spam a 10ft AoE that has a 6-second recharge time so proc activation of Hold-Set procs actually decentish. However you generally want it ED-capped for Recharge and Hold Duration with a decent chunk of Accuracy. 5x Unbreakable Constraint set IMO (without the "Hold" one) plus maybe an extra Gladiator's Net or Neuronic Shutdown proc in the 6th slot.

The Font is garbage.
It spawns at your location, has no movement speed increases and dies to a stiff breeze.

[Uun]

I would be inclined to put the Will of the Controller set (including the %dmg proc) in Stalagmites. It has a much higher chance to fire there and to hit more foes. 

 

3 hours ago, Maelwys said:

The Font is garbage.
It spawns at your location, has no movement speed increases and dies to a stiff breeze.

If I'm going to slot the Overpowering Presence set, I often put it in the AoE immobilize. Despite CoD stating that it doesn't stack I often get multiples of the Font out from subsequent applications. I've been getting interesting results slotting it in Synaptic Overload (Electric Control), where I often get 2-3 Fonts from a single application. Not sure how much damage they're doing, but I seem to get decent duration (they show up in my Pet window).

[Maelwys]

20 minutes ago, Uun said:

If I'm going to slot the Overpowering Presence set, I often put it in the AoE immobilize. 

 

The best Milage I got from it was in some of the (very oddly coded) Arsenal Control Pseudopets. 

You can absolutely get multiple copies out at a time and they can each last for up to 20 seconds (if a hostile mob doesn't sneeze in their direction before then!). However as mentioned above; the Fonts spawn at your own location (not at the location of the current target of the ability that procs them!) and their damage aura is quite low-radius yet they're both slow to choose a target and slow to travel towards that target. And if their current target dies, they're slow to pick another one. As a result... I find unless I'm standing right in the middle of a big dense pack of mobs; the daft things seem to do considerably less damage than a regular 3.5PPM damage proc.

And the IO has +Rech aspect; which is actively harmful for PPM.

💩

[Jacke]

7 hours ago, Maelwys said:

The Font is garbage.
It spawns at your location, has no movement speed increases and dies to a stiff breeze.

 

I've not found that at all.

 

On my Ice/Cold Controller, I have the Font on Block of Ice and I've had up to 3 of them out.  Because of the awesome Arctic Air I'm normally in close and the Fonts just wander over to some mob and ruin its whole day.  Even if I'm at range but in combat, the Fonts move quickly enough to take on the mobs.  Even on +4 content, I've found it rare to see the Fonts defeated before they expire.

 

I've got the Expedient Reinforcement special in Jack Frost, so the Fonts will l have +10% Resist all but Psionic within 20ft of my Controller.

 

I've not played Dominators very much, so I'm not familiar with its ATO Fiery Orb.

 

Someday someone will get numbers on the Font and the Fiery Orb and we'll have a better idea.

 

Until then, here's the CoD2 pages:

https://cod.uberguy.net/html/entity.html?entity=pets_overpowering_presence_pet

https://cod.uberguy.net/html/entity.html?entity=pets_dominating_grasp_pet

 

Both are downgraded in HP from other Pets the same amount.

https://cod.uberguy.net/html/power.html?power=pets.overpowering_presence.resistance&at=minion_pets

https://cod.uberguy.net/html/power.html?power=villain_pets.dominating_grasp.resistance&at=minion_pets

 

Both have damage auras.

https://cod.uberguy.net/html/power.html?power=pets.overpowering_presence.shocking_aura&at=minion_pets

https://cod.uberguy.net/html/power.html?power=villain_pets.dominating_grasp.blazing_aura&at=minion_pets

 

And both go away after 20s.

 

 

Edited yesterday at 07:51 PM by Jacke

[Maelwys]

  

1 hour ago, Jacke said:

I've not found that at all.

 

On my Ice/Cold Controller, I have the Font on Block of Ice and I've had up to 3 of them out.  Because of the awesome Arctic Air I'm normally in close and the Fonts just wander over to some mob and ruin its whole day.  Even if I'm at range but in combat, the Fonts move quickly enough to take on the mobs.  Even on +4 content, I've found it rare to see the Fonts defeated before they expire.

Maybe if you're in melee range of multiple foes constantly (e.g. not jousting!) and you can keep the surrounding mobs from walloping them, *maybe*.

In my experience against the standard +3 mobs, they only inflict ~5.3 damage once every 4 seconds and whilst they can last up to 20 seconds (4-5 ticks) it's rare that they'll survive beyond the first tick or two. And that's if they can actually close to melee range of more than one mob... which is rare because they use the regular "PL_FightPreferMelee" AI which means they'll try to hug whatever mob is closest; not the mob you actually want them to target. So the fight tends to go like this:

(i) Attack activates, Pet gets spawned at your own feet. 1st Damage tick gets utterly wasted.
(ii) Pet determines what enemy is closest, and starts flying towards it. It may or may not reach it before four seconds fully elapses (2nd damage tick)
(iii) Pet stops a bit short of that nearest enemy; just within damage tick range. The next damage tick that actually lands (e.g. up to 4 secs wait) will grab its attention.
(iv) The other 10+ mobs behind that enemy notice the orb and run towards it. Pet gets clobbered. It may get an extra damage tick off if it's very lucky.
(v) Then the enemies aggro me. Hurrah!

Realistically, yes, a Controller or Dominator can pin down mobs to stop (iv) and (v) from happening. But (iii) is still an issue. The stupid thing will keep hugging its chosen enemy until it dies or the font itself despawns; dealing a maximum of about 20 damage to it- e.g. less than a regular damage proc. Therefore realistically the only way to leverage it is to summon it in the middle of a big pack of mobs that are already bunched up and unable to fight back - in which case that 15ft radius autohit damage aura might actually do something. But standing in the middle of a big pack of mobs constantly is not typically something that most of my Controllers ever desire to do.
 

1 hour ago, Jacke said:

I've not played Dominators very much, so I'm not familiar with its ATO Fiery Orb.

 

They're basically identical other than the damage type (Fire vs Energy).

I've tried one fairly recently on both my Illusion/Time Controller and my Arsenal/Psi Dominator. I did try rather hard to get one to work on the Dominator; as Psychic Shockwave already puts me in PBAoE range a lot... but you can only ever spawn a maximum of one per casting; and it consistently contributed less damage than a regular 3.5PPM proc.

The 'Troller actually still has a copy in Distortion Field... but only because it was either that or a Superior Entomb proc and Perma-PA + Clarion-plus-PB'ed Farsight is nuts.


FWIW their stats both look like this:




  
They do gain the benefit of any Aura IOs and AoE Buffs... but I've never bothered to try and actually time (ha!) a Power Boosted Farsight to hit one.
 

Edited yesterday at 09:33 PM by Maelwys

[Jacke]

@Maelwys, I think my view of the usefulness of Font may be because of the effect of running Arctic Air, a 25ft PBAoE Confuse aura, as well as application of Cold Snap and Ice Slick.  All work to cut down mob attacks.  I get so many Fonts because my Toon is always using Block of Ice (with Font) as well as Chillblain (slotted for Damage) as well as Arcane Bolt for strong ST Damage.

 

The Damage is likely enough to bother the mobs.  Even on higher Notoriety content, I've not noticed the Fonts get defeated.  But there the Damage would be less.

 

If the Font inherits the slotting of the Power it's in, that's not the best Accuracy for them.  I do have Tactics at L47 (for Jack Frost, who does have ED-capped Accuracy but attacks with 1.0 Base Accuracy).  Also, the Base Accuracy of the Damage Auras for both Font and Fiery Orb is 1.0, so they're not going to be great for hitting without Tactics.  The Toon doesn't have Infrigidate either, the sole -Def Power, as its -Damage only affects Fire Damage.  Just can't fit in all the Powers into a build.

 

It's kind of a bit of extra Damage and some interference on mobs aggro.  I may some day swapped the Power Sets between Cold Snap (Will of the Controller) and Block of Ice (Overpowering Presence) as some times I want to be absolutely sure my 3 ST attacks are ST.  And right now with Font in Block of Ice, that's not true.

 

 

[tidge]

I am not a fan of the Controller Energy Font... I consider it to be the worst of the ATO procs. One of the things I dislike about it most is that there is almost always another, better choice of set (PVP, Purple, or even Winter), including the other Controller ATO set.

 

I'll use pieces of the Overwhelming Presence set while leveling (it is convenient), but the only time I'll consider it is if there is a second Controller power that has multiple different types of controls and also takes Controller ATOs.... because the 'control' aspect works to boost multiple types of controls.