Kaptein_Norge

[ QUOTE ]
First time I've played a controller and using builder came up with the current build which looks great (to me). Only problem is that I have no idea how to slot troller powers. Been playing DDs mainly which is more straight forward 3dam/3acc on everything and your fine
So my question is what should I think about when slotting troller powers?



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Good luck with this, it is a great power combo. I have the same thing; i am only 31 so far but I will offer my thoughts anyway. A lot of it is probably wrong, which will be pointed out by better players than me no doubt. I'll just go through how I have thought when slotting my own powers.

Also, damage is always going to be a problem. However, slotting these things for power wont help much as the damage is still low to begin with. A 95 % boost to puny damage is still pretty puny. I have mostly relied on getting pool powers and temp powers to help with the damage situation rather than trying to slot the controller powers for damage.

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Exported from Ver: 1.7.6.0 of the CoH_CoV Character Builder
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Name: Name Arctic Tempest
Level: 50
Archetype: Controller
Primary: Ice Control
Secondary: Storm Summoning
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01) --> Block of Ice

2. Empty Enhancement(1)

01) -->

This is like my main powers. Slotted it 3 for recharge, 3 for hold duration, and I have not regretted it. Since stamina is a long way off, you could slot 2 for end red too, at least in the beginning. I'd just put all my slots in this for the first levels, you're gonna use it A LOT, and it does OK damage too. Just this and unlotted brawl goes a long way.


Gale

2. Empty Enhancement(1)

02) -->

I think this is a worthless power, and if I could get rid of it I would. Sadly that is impossible, but at least I am allowed to not waste any slots on it. I've got accuracy in the one mandatory slot even though I very seldome use the power, and if I do, I often miss anyway.

Frostbite

2. Empty Enhancement
   
   Actually I have almost stopped using this, and started using chilblain a lot instead. Chilblain does ok damage, but over time, and it is great for stopping stragglers from reaching you. That is probably worth six-slotting; 2 acc, 2 dam, 2 recharge (what I did). When you get your damage from other sources you could drop the damage enhancements, but that would be in the heigher levels so go with damage for now.
   
   Frostbite, on the other hand, is a lot less useful. OK for managing groups (keeping them behind walls and stuff like that); but it will actually get you killed a whole lot if you use it in groups, ans you cant really manage the aggro this generates; they still have ranged attacks to hit you with, and you have little control over which targets are actually affected. So be careful with this, learn to use it correctly, don't spam it, and slot it according to the way you end up using this if at all. One for accuracy should sdo it to begin with. Dont do damage, it is utterly worthless damagewise and will never get much better regardless of slotting.
   
   
   
   (2)

04) --> Snow Storm

2. Empty Enhancement
   Slow and end drain. See how much you use it before you decide how many slots to use, I found 4 to be enough.
   
   Be careful with this. You dont want a snow stormed mob to run into a new group and aggro everybody on you. Your team wikl hate you for it. So combine this with a nice little frostbite and a block of ice once in a while.
   
   
   (4)

06) --> Arctic Air

2. Empty Enhancement(6)

08) -->

Very nice power. Confuse Duration for sure, 3 slots. Brilliant. Makes the poor idiots attack each other instead of you; but on the other hand they do get quite ticked off by it and get mad at you when they manage to focus on you. You'll also need end reduction (probably), and accuracy is nice too.

Shiver

2. Empty Enhancement(8)

10) -->

Useless power. I would not even get it, much less slot it. It has no actual use, as you already have other powers that does what this does much better.


Hover

2. Empty Enhancement(10)

12) -->

Ah, there it is. I'd replace this with Air Superiority, and much sooner at that. Maybe put some defense slots on Hover (at least the one), mabybe 3 if you want to. But if you control right, you should not need a lot of defense. So I just would not get it at all. Just my humble opinion.

Ice Slick

2. Empty Enhancement(12)

14) -->
Get this first chance you get. 6 slot it: recharge speed, accuracy, knock-up height and end red are all good slots but you'll figger all that out on your own.

Fly

2. Empty Enhancement(14)

16) -->

Swift

2. Empty Enhancement(16)

18) --> Health

2. Empty Enhancement(18)

20) --> Stamina

2. Empty Enhancement(20)

22) -->

3 for end recovery, no doubt.

Steamy Mist

2. Empty Enhancement(22)

defense is pretty good and teams will love you for slotting it.
24) --> Freezing Rain

2. Empty Enhancement(24)

26) -->

Great power! Recovery speed, so you can cast this A LOT, baybe knock up heith too if you feel like it. Worth 6 slots either way.
Glacier

2. Empty Enhancement(26)

I just dont use this power, but maybe it could be useful if slotted for accuracy (3 slots). Recharge on it quite long, if you like it, recharge reduction is probably a good idea too, but accuracy is an absolute must.

I am gonna respec this one out tho. Never use it.

28) --> Hurricane

2. Empty Enhancement(28)

Essential - if you plan to use herding tactics. I don't, but if you plan to: End reduction and that debuff that it does.

Great in PvP provided that you have a good team with you, otherwise it is hopeless using it. Effective against stalkers, but I prefer using artic air on them.


30) --> Thunder Clap

2. Empty Enhancement(30)

A new power for me, I have not gotten used ot it. But I doubt I will be using it much. Accuracy, I guess, as it may serve OK as a get away power. The jury is still out on this one

32) --> Jack Frost

2. Empty Enhancement(32)

Oh yes
3 Recharge for sure. Will get it in half a bar, and plan to use him a lot
So the rest of the powers I can't really say too much about as I dont have any of then yet.

35) --> Tornado

2. Empty Enhancement(35)

38) --> Lightning Storm

2. Empty Enhancement(38)

41) --> Ice Blast

2. Empty Enhancement(41)

44) --> Frozen Armor

2. Empty Enhancement(44)

47) --> Ice Storm

2. Empty Enhancement(47)

49) --> O2 Boost

2. Empty Enhancement(49)

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01) --> Sprint

2. Empty Enhancement(1)

01) --> Brawl

2. Empty Enhancement(1)

01) --> Containment

2. Empty Enhancement(1)

02) --> Rest

2. Empty Enhancement(2)

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Hm, I am going to look more into herdicaning myself, sounds pretty good. In my experience, freezing rain just dont do enough damage to be really effective, but I guess I have slotted wrong.

I have not used hurricane much because I am mostly a melee char (Ice/Storm), went with boxing to add a little punch (sorry about pun). But i guess you get the same problem with Air Superiority - that is indeed a melee attack too, isnt it? That must make effective hurricaning very difficult.

I tend to use arctic air and steamy mist a whole lot instead, and only flip on Hurricane to get peeps back on the slippery stuff when teammates with knockback pushes them off, or to knock things off buildings just for the fun of it. Oh and in pvp to make stalkers go insane.

What I need is ranged damage, and outside of the epics that is a huge problem. I found the nemesis staff to be exeptionally good for damage, but then you get knockback again which is not so great.

I also tried using the temp lightning attack power you can buy in buy in the pvp zones if your side is winning.... the downside is that it expires very fast, becomes fairly expensive in the long run, is not always available and theres all the traveling time ot get it. Worth getting for special occations tho. Also, I forget - but I dont think it does the bonus damage on moobs (double damage), only on players? But never mind.

Here is the thing: The very best power I have found to boost my damage as a controller, is "Old Iron", which is a reward from the Croatoa arc. A big old sword, special damage bonus to fey creatures, but decent on everything else too. Cant be slotted, of course, and no bonus for control unfortunately. On the plus side, the duration on it is bugged. It is supposed to last for 3 days, but my sword says it will expire in a bit over 5000 days. Hopefully, that will last me until I can dig into the epics.

My strategy then is to put on ice patch first, snowstorm the highest mob, run in with steamy mist and arctic air, block a minion and start wailing on him with the sword and boxing, get him out pronto. Naybe do two minions or one LT like this, then hit with Freezing rain. Normally, they wont have much chance of getting away, especially with ice and rain overlapping.

It is worth noting that aoe immobs like chilblain counters the effect (the "knock-up") of ice slick and freezing rain. So it is best to save that for later. I AOE immobing mobs and either fuching them around corners or off edges so that I only have line of sight with the bobs I am actively fighting.

I have slotted ice block for recharge speed and hold duration, it is my main powwer. I can more or less chain-hold 3 same-level lt's with it. Only real obstacle is running out of steam, so stamina is a must for this. Old Iron helps a lot for speeding up the rate at which I am able to take the poor guys out. Speed-slotting full holds means that AoE debuffs become a lot less important, as held mobs just don't need ot be debuffed really.

I am probably doing something wrong, but I figured I'd share anyway. So the main points are:
* Get Old Iron in Croatoa as soon as you can (insist on doing your mishes, you're in the range)
* don't mix immobs atacks with freezing rain, as it counters the knockup effect of the slippery ice.

The Stalker game changes a lot when you get Placate too, so the experience up to level 10 really isnt descriptive for the rest of the game.

Two good stalkers working well together can be awsome in both PvE and PvP, but two idiot stalkers working poorly togheter is probably a lot worse than, say, two idiot brutes not cooperating.

In my experience, dominators are my stalkers best friends: the hold/sleep crit thing is very very efficient.

However it takes a little teamwork, and slept enemies are very often AOE spammed before my stalker can get to them. ALso, stalkers tend to concentrate on bosses, and usually it is the minions that stay slept the longest - besides, many stalkers will let sleeping dogs lie, you know.

So - I think this is WAI, but not a lot of people are expereinced enough to take advantage of this. Give me a dominator + curruptor + stalker team, spend 1 minute discussing tactic, then we should be able to burn through almost anything and get loads of XP.


The tactic would be:
Stalker AS bosses first, corruptor helps finish them off
Dominater mostly locks stuff down for the stalker
Corruptor uses scourge when he can - focusing on finishing mobs off. And healing stalker if possible.
Stalker (mostly) attacks held/slept targets when not fighting to save his life

If applicable, the stalker could try to get multiple AS's in in multiple boss/lieutenant scenarios.

An MM would just screw things up, and a brute would not really be very helpful either.

If there should be a fourth member, I would vote for another dominator, but one more corruptor or stalker should also be useful. But that's it, full team, no more than 4 members (hard to maintain any sembalnce of teamwork and tactics after 4 members, especially with pets.

Comments? Am I off my heid?

Ah... good to know. I bet problems arise when the tornado has to travel through a group of mobs to get "home"

Sounds to me that Tornado is a pretty useful power, but that it must be used correctly and only under the appropriate circumstances... having it "tank" an AV while the minions are mopped up sounds like one good use for it, but only then the surrounding area has been completely cleared.

Ah... I stand corrected

There probably is some correct way to use Tornado... but probably not so much in a densely populated area. Could be great against a last battle against an arch villain tho? With all the mobs locked down with frostbite, plus the AV botheh slowed from Snow Storm and panicked by Tornado... that sounds like a pretty good scenario?

The problem is probably that you could get a mob that runs away in panic, with the tornado folloing him like it says in the description. The paniced mod runs trhough another enemy group, the tornado followsm, and then you det adds... not so great.

So I suppose this is something that must be used with care. And you'd have to control the mobs so that they don't run to far. Same with snow storm, really.

Well, that is what I guess, anyway, judging from the description:

[ QUOTE ]
Summon Tornado: PBAoE, Minor Dmg (Smash), Foe Disorient, Fear, Knockback
Conjures up a funnel cloud at a targeted location. The Tornado will chase down your foes, tossing them into the air and hurling them a great distance like a rag doll. The victims are left Disoriented and with a reduced defense. The Tornado is a menacing sight, and can cause panic amongst your foes.


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I'm sure there are ways to use this Tornado effectively; I am going to try to figure it out at least

Ice / Strom is what I am doing on my main, and I am loving it.

However, damage output is a problem. When teamed with a blaster or two we can plow through anything at superspeed, but soloing is a slog. Sure, I can chain-block-of-ice up to three baddies simultaneously, but the damage just aint happenning. Four, if there is only one lt. Bosses and AV's require yellows,, and a lot of them.

Anyway: low damage output it makes soloing slow, although fairly safe. You should usually have plenty of time to run away.

Mind you: I am talking about the lover levels, I am still only level 27 or so. When Jack Frost and Lightning Storm becomes available you'll be a damage powerhouse as well as being untouchable due to uber control.

I have partially solved the early level lack of damage by getting Punch from the fighting pool, but that might have been a mistake. Getting Air Superiority from Flight would probably have made more sense, especially as I went for Fly as my travel power anyway, and as Hover is pretty useless really. And Air Superiority is ranged of course - safer. But I don't know if AS would work well with held and immobilized targets?

I think I made a mistake in not getting Chilblain at the start, the single-target moderate Damage over Time power... maybe someone else will tell me that would have been a waste anyway, but I currently intend to get it on level 28 just to be able to get a little more damage out there. Slotted for damage, recharge and end reduction that should be pretty decent. I hope. Please correct me if this is wrong, then I wont bother getting it this late in the game (it is the alternative starting power, after all).

As for the storm powers, all of them are great and worth getting. This is not the same for Ice, but I am absolutely reccomend getting Ice Slick and Block of Ice.

Flash Freeze, however, is useless and I have not bothered with shiver either. Glacier I very rarely use, as it must be slotted for accuracy to hit more then one mob anyway. So mostly worhtless, think I will respec it out.

I think Arctic Air is really great, especialy when teamed with other long-rage guys. Slows the mobs rushing in nicely. Nice versus stalkers in PvP too, fun to watch them trying to run away after failing their AS attempt (it helps that Arctic Air buffs defense). I run it with Steamy Mist, with confusion slotted, and that is a very good defense against stalkers... and against mobs too.

In fact, I can some times just stand around running Steamy Mist and Arctic Air, throw an Ice Slick out once in a while (slotted for recharge), run Snow Storm on the boss (it is auto-hit) and maybe slap on a block of Ice once in a while If I feel like it to be effective. In some battles, that is. Not all.

So - number one tip is to be aware of the damage situation early in the game. Note that containment works with pool powers like punch (and Air Superiority, I suppose?), but not with brawl.

[ QUOTE ]
Smoking Demon's guide to creating a successful character:

1) Concept;
2) 4 hours in character-creation module;
3) As many Power Pools as possible;
4) 4 more hours in Icon/Facemaker;
5) Delete character and remake with different powersets because "concept didn't feel right";
6) Never see any high-level content ever.



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You forgot points 2b and 2c:

2b: Realize that the name you wanted, that the concept completely hinges on, is already taken.
3c: Start over from scratch. Repeat until, I don't know, you roll a natural 20 on name creativity.

I am a slow leveler, so I can only get into BB for the time being (should change within a few days tho). So my only grioe about PvP would be that there are not enough people in BB. It is usually quite hard to find villains to fight.

I often ask people I team with to come to BB, maybe just to do missions and mobs, and some PvP if we find some villains to fight. A lot say that they don't like Pvp and dont want to do it et cetera, and then I have to explain the whole mechanic of not getting debt and stuff. Often, they decide to give it a go after all, and so far everyone who have tried it seems to love the experience. Perhaps because there is very little ganking in this game; nice and balanced that way.

So - there is a lot of misinformation and prejudice about PvP in this game. but I think it is very well done, extremely enjoyable.

However, I wish there would be more PvP events of some sort, to get more peeps into the PvP areas. If only to do street missions with the risk of meeing some hostile players along the way, for the added thrill of it!

So - more pvp would be good! And some ways to focus the pvp minded players more, right now I don't even know where to go for the battles, I just roam BB looking for trouble, mostly around the fire bases, but that is a pretty dangerous area due to the chance of accidental pve death and debt (from the artillery towers).

The famed polar explorer and scientist Roald Amundsen went missing during a rescue mission in 1928, when his friend the aviation pioneer Umberto Nobile went missing near Spitzbergen. Nobile was rescued by another party, but Amundsen never returned from the frozen wastes of the north. At least he did not return as Amundsen, who was presumed dead.

Amundsen's one-man airplane had been cought in a blizzard, and he crashed into a glacier. Instantly frozen, completely incapsulated in ice, his body drifted across the north pole several times over the following decades.

His body was not found until 1999, and scientists were stunned to find that the ice had not only presered his body perfectly, but also rejuvenated it. Surrounded by powerful polar energies, his frozen body hummed with power. The scientists were able to revive the legend, and found him to have absorbed Arctic Powers during his more than seventy years of imprisonment in polar ice. Amundsen awoke to find himselt the master of the power rctic: the ability to call forth and command both intense cold and fearsome arctic storms.

Realizing that the world he once knew was gone, that the scientific expertise that had won him world-wide fame had become obsolete, and that everyone he once knew was dead, Amundsen donned the costume of Kaptein Norge. Amundsen never returned from his last jouney to the arctic - in his stead stands Kaptein Norge, upholder of the law, champion of democratic socialism and defender of social equality and the norwegian way of life. As Kaptein Norge, he set about defending his home country from the vile capitalist villain known as Private Sector. Powered by greed, cutting edge technology and mother earths black blood - petroleum oil - Private Sector had been corrupting Norwegian society since the seventies.

Kaptein Norge eventually succeeded in arresting Private Sector, who was incarcerated in the international super-security fascilty know as "The Ziggurat" in Paragon City. When Private Sector regained his freedom as a result of a mass prison break-out orchestrated by Lord Recluse, Kaptein Norge traveled to Paragon City, looking for a way to bring his arch enemy back behind bars.

Private Sector remains on the loose to this day, but Kaptein Norge is always right behind him - but seems unable to quite catch up to the vile capitalist super-villain for some reason.

Kaptein Norge's alter ego Roald Amundsen was born in 1872, so that puts the good captain at something like 133 years. Of course, the Captain was frozen in ice near the North Pole for at least 70 of those years, absorbing the powers of the arctic, so he has been actively living for only 63 years.

The mysterious arctic powers (ice/storm) has rejuventated him and buffed him out a fair bit, so physically he looks like a quite muscular twentysomething these days. Also, he appears to have stopped aging, and he is growing more powerful with every passing day.

Ah, thanks, that makes sense yeah. I am eventually going to respec Punch out again, but I am betting it will be very helpful for me in getting to level 32

Hm, ok... I am probably doing something wrong then, because I am finishing mobs more than twice as quickly since I got Punch, and I can risk taking on fairly big groups of mobs now also without getting faceplanted. In my opinion, Punch has a fast recharge and low endurance cost... and, with the double damage from the innate ability, very decent damage. I can't see how this is stupid or wasted, but I guess I am being stupid not seeing the problem with this.

The one attack I have that does decent damage in my "regular" power set is Block of Ice, and it is medium recharge and quite costly endurance wise, so I cant rely on that for my damage output. Maybe this is different for the other controller power sets? Maybe you are talking about Chilblain as a damage output controller attack (or some corresponding single-target power in other sets). I fing Chilblain at least to be worthless compared to Punch, basically it gives almost no damage... but maybe I am wrong on that account as well.

I have not experimented much with air superiority, will get that too and figure out which one is best... maybe use both! But I am not very interested in group fly, so Hoover and Flight should serve me well for now... don't particularily need Air Superiority as a prerequisite. The defensive features of Hoover are welcome for a squishy like me, even though I hear they are almost non-existent?

I guess I am just a noob and an idiot for suggesting Punch, but it has been a very good power for me... and I would in fact like to hear just why it is so horribly wrong for a controller to pick this power. So far it fits my playstyle like a glove, so I clearly must be doing a lot of stuff very wrong!

SAme-AT fights really don't make much sense to me, but hey...

A christmas SG pentad tourney for both heroes and villains would be cool though!

In my opinion, Siphon Speed and just any of the standard travel powers (like Sprint) is plenty to get around. So this is a great way to actually save a power slot. As for vertical movement, it can be useful in street hunting... but I have not really missed it much on my dark/kin corruptor.

Hoover + Siphon Speed should be enough to get you up on low rooftops, on top of the foilage in Perez Park and other stuff like that, so SS + hoover + any innate running power, like Quick, Sprint or Power Slide, should really see you through for most occations.

If SS should miss, you can usually still survive running to the next mob without getting killed while waiting for it to recharge.

BTW, Hoover can also save you from falling damage, and getting around by way of jumping from house to house, running along ledges, juping as far as you can (quite far when you get your speed on) and hoovering a few feet, then dropping to a ledge and run along it, bouncing of buildings as you go.... that it a very, very cool way to travel! A bit demanding, not at all like Flight + Autorun.... but very cool

I'm an Ice/Storm controller and loving it. Anyway, I have a tip that should work well independently of what control powers you have:

Get "Punch" from the pool power "Fighting" as soon as possible.

And that would be at level 6

Controllers cause double damage to any controlled mob. But very few of the controller attacks have decent damage, and those that do have slow recharge. So getting punch is just brilliant - with double damage going on (cause you ever only want to punch held target anyway, right?), you get a decent damage output even on low levels. In my experience, soloing without punch is just impossible. With Punch I can take on fairly large groups of mobs, lock them down and weed them out quite nicely. It is smart to do this with melee based mobs predominantly; mobs like the Vahzilok with their crossbows and the clockwork with their long-range electric charges should be avoided whenever possible.

Punch is my favourite power as a controller, well that and Block of Ice, Frostbite and Ice Slick. Oh, and arctic air I guess.... I love all my control powers it seems

I have put auto-attack on my Punch and slotted it for damage only. You put a power on auto-attack (spam) by holding down control and left-clicking the power. That way, it will lauch immediately at the target mob if it is within reach.

For controllers, Fighting just rules. I am getting the rest of the set too, that is for sure, I am giving Fighting priority over my other controlling powers for now. If later powers turn out to give decent damage output, I might respec it out, but for now it is my most effective power.

I am Norwegian, of course so are my main characters, Kaptein Norge and Private Sector both hail from Norway.