Enantiodromos

But soft, what light through yonder splashscreen breaks? It is the east, and Statesman's crotch is the sun!

Thanks for the feedback guys.

I am in fact able to re-slot them. Do the new un-slotting things that you can buy unbind the +ed IOs from your accout so you can sell them?

Since you've not pointed them out, I take it you withdraw your criticism of the poster's character. I always said you were a nice guy.


I like slaying men of straw 'much as the next guy, but who said "You should skip everything but the absolute best combos?" I don't see that position here. I see sort of the opposite-- a question about a best combination.


Haha. 'Extremely' subjective? To begin with, the objectives of the game, taken as a whole experience with the limitations it imposes, are in fact fairly narrow. (This is nothing like saying "the scope of things you can do while logged onto the game is extremely narrow." You can always file your nails and call it playing CoX, but that doesn't mean that Ice/Rad controllers, which afford a lot more time to file your nails than do Mind/Kin controllers, are better to play CoX with if you're a manicurophile.) Indeed, they're 'extremely' narrow if we're talking (we are) about objectives of power performance across entire sets in incarnate trials.

Naturally, different mobs do have different resistances, damage types, and de/buff powers, and there is indeed a spectrum of best-solo-performance to best-large-team-performance, that makes some powers more effective in some circumstances and with certain objectives. There're even a few unusual objectives (mostly: travel-related) sprinkled through the game at which some powers will excel.

But these variables are mostly accounted for by the OP, though to be honest I know little about iTrial content, opponents, and maps. Keys sounds weird. I plan to pick up running my 50s through that content once the weather's cold.

So, you brought "You should make sure to realize you have many options!" to a question "What would be the best for running iTrials?"

I still think you're a nice guy though.

Supposing we agree that on big teams AoE damage outstrips most effects of ST damage, you may find a measure I've sometimes used relevant: DPS x Radius. I felt what I got was pretty intuitively sound. I don't know how to account for Brute and Blaster self-buffs as well as I do for containment, and these figures also don't assume any de/buff: I have Plant control at at ~485, and Fire control at ~414, compared with AR at ~1023 (this exposes the love my formula shows cones, and also doesn't include ignite), Fire Blast at ~924, Electric Blast at ~436, Psy blast at ~292 (these are all the blaster/primary version).

Like I say, these reflect my intuitive sense of contained controller AoE dmg ballparking mediocre blast AoE dmg (before the brute & blaster self-buffs). I agree it's another story solo, but big team, you want a few AoE attacks to throw and let the people who don't have much besides dmg and self-def clean up the bosses and hanging-on lieutenants.

OT, do you find faults with the arguments (or posting tactics) the poster has made in this conversation? If so I trust you would point them out.

Saying something like "conversations with so-and-so never go anywhere because of their personal tastes and tendency to make a lot of personal attacks," is ad hominem, for these purposes, it seems to me. Pot, kettle, black.

I'm more with Leviathan. (sp?) I know you've gone on to parse this more closely, but I still wonder if there's not some hangup on either historical or by-name definitions of controller role. I would have said myself: "there's no point in going overboard with control" when you can balance in other factors-- and a perfect example is choosing an aggressive primary, Plant or Fire, over Earth.

De/Buff is what controllers can bring to teams that matters most. Mitigation via control and damage are both secondary, and [despite whatever I think about the now ancient control nerf and the missed opportunity to make control more relevant with AI changes/ambushes/mission goals] frankly I think the best examples of good control/good damage vs great control/mediocre damage (Plant or Fire vs Earth or Ice) would bear out that in teams the extra area damage will come out ahead. Could be wrong, I don't play much earth.

Haven't had any chance to study Time yet. If it's a super-aggressive de/buff set (like kin or storm on steroids-- I didn't get that impression), I can see an earth argument.

If you had a direct comparison between the utility of X amount of damage and Y amount of control, that argument could be a lot less subjective. At best we're stuck with our implicit understandings of the level of nuisance and the short-term XP slowdown due to the microdebt the game imposes, though, right?

Normally I'm not one to propose "agree to disagree," but experience of frequently vs rarely dying on big teams in high-danger situations (e.g., the trials in question) probably constitutes a significant difference. For example, PUGs where 75% of toons are blueside-native damage-primaries, yeah, I'll want (to play or play with) an Earth controller. In a normal 8-man of my play experience, there's typically at least three de/buff sets, and one control set. And that's already over the "prefer fire/plant" threshold in my experience.

Well, right. What % of the time are you solo? What % of the time are you playing with at least 3 teammates in the 40+ range? I don't remember for sure that you've said, but isn't it something like 100%/0%?

Not that I never solo myself, mind you.


Deacon-- I apologise if you feel like somebody was trying to force you to submit to something. That wasn't me. I tried to focus on reasons for Kin/not, which was our chosen tangent. A little less tantrum and a little more reasoning goes a long way.

Right, I realize benumb is even better, but Heat Loss is really the part of the equation (aside from seeing animations & experiencing nuances) I've always been missing, I think, in my understanding of Cold. If nothing else, I'm pretty sure I'm going to have to play a Cold Def here momentarily, as a result of this conversation.

Obviously you are, since I named two other secondaries that are "close runners-up" in the very next sentence. Which brings us back to context and keeping track of what was said, and your qualifications for the list you mentioned.

Except the none of your reasons are both relevant and accurate, as I showed. "I'm not inclined to explain myself," is a poor substitute for "I may have to revise my opinion," or "Well, I guess I didn't really mean that." You should try one of the latter.

Papa-- I have a grav/sonic at 39. Heh. Ever play that build?

Also, while I have no doubt Earth/Rad's impressive feeling, especially at times, I think it's important to weigh how willing people would be to team with you over, you know, any other build, in this question. Seems like that's at leat part of "best." And I can only think of a few situations I'd prefer an Earth/Rad on a large, late-game, otherwise detail-unknown team.

Wait no more. You said:
... followed up with your personal expression of rage 'gainst the machine. This was in response to my remark that the best high end pve controllers will be Kinetics secondary. The degree in question (designated by "that") of greatness (contextually; see also my guide to the word necessary for helpful hints on context) is: that it is part of the best controller builds. Like I said.

You said it wasn't that great-- indeed you pretended to control a verbal outburst telling me just how wrong I was to say it was that great.

If you didn't mean what you said or think you may have been mistaken (as I've already said I may well be re: Cold), it comes across as much more honest and charming to say something like, "I may have to revise my opinion," or "Well, I guess I didn't really mean that." You should give it a try.

I might start a list with people who can't keep track of what was said. In this case, I don't at all think and never said anything like "cold is just bubbles." So I'll trust that we can each make our own lists.

"Excited to see" isn't as much a criticism of the build, as it is of strategy, where Storm's concerned. (I take conversations about a controller to be abouta build, not a person.) I grant Storm can be played as you would solo, and annoy a team.

Let me get this straight:

1. Because there are so many Kineticists, the set's not that great.
2. Because kins don't stack well, the set's not that great.
3. Because in this era, everybody has tons of +rec and +rchg, the set's not that great.

1. argues against itself. The correlation between performance an popularity is certainly not 1, but it's also certainly not negative in something as widely played as kin. If it's ubiquitous it's probably effective.

2. is irrelevant, as we're not talking about /Kin superteams, we're talking about individual builds. Incidentally it's also inaccurate, as they do stack well, particularly on controllers, who tend to be replete with long-ish and very long recharge times on powers. Which controller secondary stacks vastly much better than Kin BTW?

3. is inaccurate. Incarnates and people with billions to spend on LotGambler, Performance shifter, and whatever the latest set bonuses are in +rec and +rchg, are a tiny subset of "high end pve." That conversation is "tricked out L50s."

Yes, Thermal I dismiss. Re: Cold, you may have a point. Point of difference may be: in my experience killing as mitigation works; bubbles have never really impressed me.

BTW, the squeaking about mod-smack is silly.

Well, fun to have injected more vitality into this debate. Yes, I don't have a L38+ */Cold. The way I read Cold Dom (it's been a while) vs Storm Summon, for big team play: Trade Hurricane and Dmg pseudopets for bubbles and heat loss. Disagree? Considering the roles I see hurricane and -Res playing, I have to admit Cold has a lot going for it. I may revise.