Grav/FF controlling: Zen and the art of knockback

“Zen and the art of Knockback”
or
40 levels of gravity and force fields
[resposted here from the controller forums, since CuppaJo sez this is a better place... Also fixed a few typos.]

Ok, so I finally hit the big 40 last week. And since it looks like it will be a while before I’m actually 50, and because I’m impatient, I’m going to write this now, instead of waiting for 10 more levels. What is this? I’m glad you asked. It’s my guide to the effective use of gravity and force fields, as a controller, of course!

But first let’s start with what this is NOT:

This is not another “here’s what I think of power x” list for the set. AtomicKitty already has an excellent one for gravity that I agree with for the most part, so I feel no need to duplicate her efforts. There is also at least one decent force field guide floating around on the defender forums somewhere.

This is not me trying to tell anyone how to build their character.

This is not even me trying to tell anyone how to PLAY their character.

What this IS is a list of why I think gravity and force fields go well together, what powers work well together, the tips and tricks I’ve picked up, how I see my role in a group, and my general philosophy when playing as a grav/ff controller.

If you find this helpful, then great! If you don’t, then oh well. If you disagree with me, feel free to point out all the places where you feel I’m being horribly, horribly wrong. And if you have your own nifty tricks, insights, or just general commentary on gravity or force fields, feel free to chime in. I don't pretend to be an "expert" on gravity or force fields, just some poor sod thathappens to have slogged through 40 levels of them.

Sorry that the whole thing is a bit long winded. Let’s get started:

General thoughts on Gravity as a set, and my role as a gravity controller:

Gravity is weird. It is pretty much the most single-target-oriented controller set in existence. It has one of the best singe-target damage abilities (in terms of pure numbers) in any controller set, with Propel. AND it has Lift, another excellent single target power that can be slotted for damage. Together, these make early level soloing a lot easier, especially in the teens.

To pay for these, however, Gravity has very little area control. Aside from the amazing Gravity Distortion Field, (which is arguably the best area hold in the game, except for EMP) the only other area crowd control gravity gets are it’s area root and the much maligned Dimension Shift, an area intangible. Contrast this to Earth, which gets no less than 6 area crowd control abilities. (Salt Crystals [sleep], Volcanic Gasses [Hold-zone], Earthquake [knockback-zone], Stalagmites [disorient], Quicksand [snare-zone], and Stone Cages [root].)

On the surface, it looks like gravity kind of got the short end of the stick. However, if you look closely at some of gravity’s single target abilities (Wormhole, Lift, and Propel), you start to notice that they all have something kind of interesting in common: They all have 100% knockdown on them, and ignore magnitude. This gives gravity several fairly decent powers to cycle to keep individual enemies out of the fight. Even bosses, and other high-threat targets! While other controllers are struggling to maintain magnitude, gravity can just juggle the tank smasher around until the group is ready to deal with it, or until they land two consecutive holds.

And this single-target mastery only gets better once the gravity controller hits 32 and gets his or her pet: Suddenly, you have one or more mini-controllers floating around, and applying the same holds as you are, and helping you achieve and keep magnitude. NO other controller can keep bosses locked down with such ease. Any single target that is not an archvillain or monster class, (and is within a reasonable level range) a gravity controller can solo in near complete safety. It may not be especially fast, but if done properly, there is virtually NO chance that it will ever break free.

No other control set is as good at single-target control as gravity. We do kind of fall flat when battling monsters and archvillains however, which is kind of unfortunate. Hopefully the new “redlight-greenlight” system they’re implementing will make us more useful there.

Gravity controllers are a lot like ice blasters, then: For those unfamiliar with the powerset, ice blasters get very few AoE damage abilities, but get a lot of tools to pile on the damage to a single target. If you want to take down a field of minions, then fire or assault rifle is your blaster set, but if you want to tear down a single target with lots of HP, it’s hard to do much better than ice. The parallel should be obvious; this is gravity all over: Very few AoE abilities, but single targets? Man we have those covered.


As a gravity controller, here is how I see my role in a group:

I float over the group during battles, and watch the battle unfold. I usually toss out my area hold at the start of the fight, because it’s basically free. But other than that, I feel that my job is NOT to keep every enemy in the battle locked down forever. In most cases, it just isn’t needed.

Groups have ways of dealing with things like minions. Ways like blasters and scrappers. My job is not to make sure that no one on my team ever gets hit. That’s why we brought one or more healers. [hopefully!] My job is just to make sure that if someone DOES start getting hit, particularly someone who shouldn’t be (like a blaster or healer, for example) that I make them not be getting hit. Knock away whatever was hitting them. Hold it. Wormhole it into the stratosphere. Whatever. As controllers, we don’t need to be spamming our area lockdowns as fast as we can, willy-nilly, since the simple fact is, most group members can deal with the attentions of a minion or two just fine. Lieutenants and bosses can be a different story. (or large groups of minions for that matter.) Those are where I direct most of my attention. Keeping them off their feet, and away from our more fragile group members. Keeping them busy until a damage dealer can put them down for the count.

I’m not saying that throwing area effects around willy-nilly is necessarily BAD, but it is somewhat inefficient and needlessly hard on the endurance bar. And particularly for gravity controllers, who don’t HAVE lots of area lockdowns to throw around, we tend to gravitate [hah! I made a funny!] towards more precise methods. And again, we ARE uniquely situated among all of the controller sets to deal with bosses. So it makes sense for us to focus there.


Moving right along...


Force fields:

I really like force fields as a secondary. It has a lot of interesting things as a set. For one thing, it is the only controller secondary that has ZERO healing ability. It makes up for this, in general, with its amazing defense buffs. You may have trouble getting groups earlier on, (“whut kind of controller ARE you that can’t heal?!?”) but after they start noticing that they’re not getting hit much, people usually figure it out. In particular, you really come into your own at level 20, when you can take Dispersion Bubble, and offer your entire team a nice defense bonus, AND high resistance to all crowd control effects except sleep. This is also a wonderful power because it is the only real force field power that defends YOU, the caster. (except for the incredible Personal Force Field, but you can’t attack out of that one.)

Fun fact: The single target force fields provide a base 16% defense increase to their target, and the dispersion bubble is a base 10% defense boost. Fully slotted with defense enhancements (which give only +20%, instead of the usual +33%, sadness) you can get the defense up as high as:
(10% + 16%) * (0.2*6)
(26%) * 2.2
~57%

A blanket 57% defense increase to everything except psionics is pretty impressive, when you think about it. Especially since that all comes from one character, and stacks with whatever other defense abilities they might have. For reference, even-con minions have only a 50% chance to hit you in the first place. This drops even-con minions down to the minimum 5% chance to hit, as well as taking a huge chunk out higher-level foes’ chances of landing a blow.

Funner fact: If you were a defender instead of a controller, your force fields would be 25% better, so the base bonuses would be 12.5% and 20%, and the max you could protect your team would be ~68% or so. So they still defend better than we do.

As a force field controller, (or “bubbler”, in street-talk) you have several advantages over your less defensive counterparts. For one thing, you are far sturdier than they are. Early on, you can hide inside of your personal force field, and do the boombox emote while the group wipes around you after a bad pull. (I’m all for staying around and helping as long as it looks like we can win, but once 75% of the group is dead, it’s time to hide in my hamsterball, as far as I’m concerned.)

Personal force field is really an amazing power. Aside from phase out, it is the single best “don’t kill me!” move in the entire game. It gives absurd defense bonuses, as well as blanket 50% damage resistance. I’ve taunted Malta mechs 10 levels above me, and they didn’t hit me once, while I sat around and admired their cool looking missiles. It has the downside that you can’t affect anyone outside of it, however, that doesn’t stop them from affecting you. The neat thing is that this includes teammates as well as enemies. If you get low on life you can just put up your bubble and wait for the team healer to toss a heal your way. While your bubble will stop the nazi bullets from shredding your hide, the sweet, green glow of Heal Other will go right on through, smooth as you please. (The power pool ability “aid self” is kind of nice here as well, for patching yourself up from within the safety of your invincible hamsterball.)

I STRONGLY recommend binding personal force field to something easy to reach, and activating it any time you’re below 40% life or so. Your xp bar will thank you for it. The only caveat is that it does not protect you from status effects, so if you want to be REALLY safe, put up dispersion bubble as well.

Once you get dispersion bubble, 6-slotting it as fast as possible. Don’t just put defense in it however. Slot enough endurance in it so that you can leave it on at ALL TIMES, and still have enough endurance to function comfortably. This amount will vary from player to player. 3 endurance-reducing SOs were enough to let me function pretty well pre-stamina. After stamina, it takes a lot less, but how much less is up to you, and a matter of personal preference. However the point is… leave it up any time you are in a place where there MIGHT be danger. It will really, truly save your life. You’ll have a base 10%-22% defense boost on at all times, depending on your slotting. At the upper end, that’s like having a def. Inspiration on permanently. Also, you’ll have a lot of resistance to status effects, so you won’t worry as much about being stunned while flying, and landing in the middle of a bunch of people with sharp weapons and nasty grins. This single power will make you far more likely to survive than almost any other available to any controller, anywhere. And your team will like the defense and status effect resistance as well. I really cannot say enough good things about it.

(For the curious, as far as I can tell, the status effect resistance works by simply giving everyone in the area a magnitude boost. So they CAN still disorient/hold/root you, they just have to hit you two or three times in a row with it. A feat made somewhat more difficult by the aforementioned +10%-22% defense bonus on the bubble…)


Gravity and force fields, together at last and kicking butt:

General themes:

Knockdown: Magnitudeless crowd control

Energy blasters have known it for a long time. Knockback is a beautiful thing. It ignores magnitude and when people are knocked down and getting up, they’re not attacking you or your friends. You even have a melee-friendly knockdown, in lift: They go straight UP, and so they land in the same place, and your friend Fred the Scrapper doesn’t have to run across the room to keep fighting them. (Note that knocking down “heavy” enemies is still pretty melee friendly, since they tend to just fall down, and not go anywhere. Heavy enemies include things like clockwork princes, wolfpack robots, and freak tanks.)

Propel is also useful as a knockdown power, although its long casting time makes it somewhat less useful this way. It’s less melee-friendly than lift, but it has the benefit of doing the most damage of any controller power that I know of. (Spectral wounds seems to be about on a par with it, but it has the whole “healing back” part, so it’s total damage is not quite as high.) Sadly, propel deals crushing damage, the most resisted damage type in the game. But even so, slotted out with 1 accuracy and 5 damage SOs, it still does around 25% of a white minion’s HP. Not blaster-level by any means, but still enough to pick off the odd enemy that my singularities haven’t killed yet.

Force bolt is also an excellent choice for knockdown. It has further fling than propel, an extremely fast casting time, minimal endurance cost, great recycle time, and a good base accuracy bonus. The only down side is that it does less damage than brawl, so don’t count on killing anyone with it. It is an all around good utility power.

And of course singularities are the ultimate knockdown bomb. You can only place them once in a while, but when you do, why not place them on top of an enemy? They automatically fling anyone near them, so use them as a knockdown if you can find an enemy that no one is fighting that needs to be knocked down.

Knockdown is really a wonderful tool, and with gravity and forcefields, you have a ton of ways to do it. (I didn’t even touch on repulsion field or repulsion bomb, since I’ve had very little experience with either one.) The only thing to keep in mind is, for a scrapper, knocking down an enemy that they are fighting with anything other than lift is going to make them run after it, and possibly feel annoyed at you. You have the potential to spare your teammates from a lot of attacks with knockdowns, but you also have the potential to be really annoying to them as well. So make sure to use your powers for good and not evil.


Distance: A gravity controller’s subtlest weapon

As a gravity and force field controller, you have one other really excellent tool at your disposal: Distance. Another simple idea that is often overlooked, if you can keep an enemy out of their attack range, then they can’t hurt you or your friends. And with good roots and good knockbacks, you have just this capability. Toss a root on almost anything, and then force bolt it. Off it goes, most likely out of its attack range, and your hair. If that isn’t far enough, then force bolt them again. (It recycles fast enough.) Or if one is handy, knock them off a ledge. Either way, it puts them out of attack range for a bit, and keeps them there. For no particular reason, I like to call this a “ghetto hold”.

This works especially well with enemies that have few or no ranged attacks, such as Freakshow tanks and Fifth Column warwolves.

This tactic gets even more potent once you get wormhole. Toss a root on something. Wormhole it out somewhere over the horizon. It will come back eventually, but you have still effectively taken it out of the fight for quite a while. Heck, you don’t even have to use a root if you don’t want to; wormhole has such a huge range that just the time it takes them to recover from the disorient and make their way back is often as much as you need.


Knockback resistance: A double edged sword

One of the many ways in which gravity is somewhat unique is that the knockback resistance on it’s root and hold is reversed from most other sets. See, most other sets have a root that prevents knockdown, but a hold that does not. Gravity’s root does NOT prevent knockback, but it’s hold DOES. While this can be annoying in some cases, (you can’t knock down a boss while you are trying to get hold magnitude on him, for example) it also has some great uses. For example, if you use your area hold, then blasters can blast to their hearts’ content, and not knock enemies out of their tight formation. Your blaster friends with trip mines or energy torrents and nova will love you for this.

(Funny fact: You can increase the hold duration with enhancements, but the knockback resistance duration will be unaffected. What this means in game terms is that if you increase the hold duration, then they will spend the first part of their time held and immune to knockback. But then, sometime later, the knockback resistance will vanish, and they can be flung around, even though they are still held. This can be a useful way to tell if a hold is running out; just toss a force bolt at them, and if they go flying, it’s time to start thinking about reapplying it…)


Gravity/Forcefield ultimate technique! Battlefield control!

I feel that this is sort of the highest manifestation of the gravity/force field controller’s art: Incredible control over the placement of everything on the battlefield. You have all the tools you need in these two sets. Quick, fast knockback with force bolt. Precision teleporting with wormhole. Mass enemy herding with repulsion field and force bubble. Area roots with HUGE areas, to make sure everyone stays where they are put.

I don’t think any other combination of sets has as many ways of making sure enemies go (and stay!) where you want them. And that, my friends, is real control.




Ok, enough general theory. On to practice:

General tips, tricks, and combos with gravity and force fields:


Lift + Force bolt:
This basically gives you a long-distance fling, if timed right. Since they start the forward momentum from somewhere up in the air, instead of on the ground, they tend to fly a bit further. This does not work as well as it used to before they adjusted knockback, but it still works well enough to get that extra bit of fling.

Crush + force bolt (on fliers)
This one is kind of obvious, but included for completeness:
Knockback does not work on fliers. They just do a little flip, and don’t really lose any time. Annoying? Yup. But wait, what was that secondary effect on our root? The one that everyone laughed at in controller school because it was useless? -fly? Hmm. Guess it does have a use after all. Since, you know, you can’t keep them off their feet until you make sure they’re on them. Not wonderful, but there are some fairly annoying flying enemies that have made me glad of my root’s secondary effect. (Tsoo ancestor spirits, for example.)

Gravity Distortion + Wormhole
The common complaint with wormhole is that it is hard to use for fine placement, since it has that absurd knockback when they come out of it. Most gravity controllers have already figured this out, but for those that have not yet made the connection: Knockback is the problem. Gravity’s holds prevent knockback. If you hold them before you wormhole them, they will go right where you want them to, and stay there.

Wormhole + Singularities:
Singularities have the attention span of 2-year-olds on caffeine. They switch targets as fast as they can find them. However, when focused on a single target, they can usually make pretty short work of them. But how do you make sure that the singularities stay focused? By making sure that only one enemy is within their attack range at a time. How do you do that? See “battlefield control, above”. Wormhole works REALLY well for this, I’ve found. Summon up a few singularities. Throw an area hold on a group of enemies. Wormhole them over to your singularities one by one, and watch them get munched. (This is more of a useful tactic when soloing, since otherwise fights don’t last long enough for this to be a help. In groups it’s only nice for letting your singularities keep a boss out of everyone’s hair, like a Crey Paragon Protector that you don’t have time to babysit.)

Singularities + choke points:
Singularities are kind of neat, in a lot of ways. They have a fairly simple AI pattern: “Is there an enemy within range? If so, stop moving and throw some gravity at it. Otherwise, follow the controller”. The interesting part about this is that, as long as there is at least one enemy within range, the singularity will usually stay stationary as it cycles through it’s gravity powers on everything it can see. So if you put it in a choke point that you don’t want anything to get past like a door or ramp, then the singularity will usually stay there for as long as there are enemies to block. This is a great tactic since players can run through singularities without any problem, but enemies get flung back and can’t get through.

Force bubble + corners:
This one is sort of obvious, but it is still pretty handy. It takes some time to get good at, however. Force bubble is a gigantic repel-field that shoves everything in it away from you. (But does not knock it down.) If there is a corner handy, you can use this to herd a bunch of enemies into it, and then they cannot escape. This is basically blaster heaven. Blasters can even use knockback attacks, and the enemy will still be pressed into the corner. Woo!

Force bubble + Dimension shift:
Dimension shift is a great situational panic button, but it has the problem that the phased enemies run up and mingle with the unphased enemies, and it becomes impossible to target one or the other. (This will get a bit better once issue #2 goes live, and Dimension Shift has a root component, in addition to phasing) So how do you filter out the ones you can affect from the ones you cannot? Force bubble! All the ones that are in phase will be flung out of your bubble, but the ones that are affected (and that you can ignore) will be able to stay inside your bubble. So as long as your team knows what you are doing, you can use this as a giant sieve to separate the phased enemies from the normal ones.


Final thoughts:

Gravity and Force Field are some really neat power sets. Part of the reason I think they are so neat, is because they have some great effects that just are not FOUND in very many other places. Effects that interact with the game in ways that go beyond just throwing blanket status effects on an area, or making numbers appear over enemies’ heads. Knockback by itself is a tremendously fun aspect of the game, with a lot of room for creative use. Throw in things like wormhole and force bubble, and you have the potential to solve a lot of your crowd control problems in some fairly unique ways.

Gravity does not feel like a gimped power line to me. It just feels like one that requires slightly different tactics in order to reach it’s full potential. Am I saying that it’s perfect? No, like any power set, it has some powers that could use some love. (Dimension shift really needs some sweet Dev lov’n, propel and lift could stand to do more damage, and propel and wormhole could stand to have their animation times drastically reduced.) But all in all, I think it’s a pretty solid set, once you get used to it’s quirks. And if nothing else, it has been a FUN set, that has kept me entertained for 40 levels, and will probably keep me entertained for at least another 10.

Happy controlling.

-Doctor Gravity
40 Gravity/Forcefield Controller,
Justice

Yay! The bubbly side isn't usefull for me, but the gravity side deffinatly is.

Having a bit of trouble in hero builder though. Mostly on what I should take and when really. This an Atomic Kitty's guide helps, but you both have diffrent secondaries than me.

Having loads of fun with repel though..

IMHO, Gravity is the best Controller primary. 'Course I play a scrapper - so I see things differently. Gravity has three advantages from my perspective:

1> Seems like Gravity's AoE lockdown recycles faster.
2> I can easily tell which mods are locked up and which I need to "kill" first.
3> Gravity powers bring down flyers.

Pets aside, Gravity has some great powers for dealing with "uber" mobs. Wormhole is cool. Gravity Controllers can place the LT back in the Burn Tanker's Patch, or in the middle of a large group for AoE assaults. Propel is damage light for sure, but keeping that Storm Shamen on his butt helps the Blasters a ton (I have moble status protection, so I don't care) - not to mention it knocks those darn Sky Raiders (yeah, A few can fly) down to earth. Actually, most of their powers do this - which helps us ground bound people.

Pets? [censored], all of you Controllers suck (in the "I'm so damn jeleous" way). I want pets! Those darn things kick serious butt.

Force Field is cool too, but the KB powers are beyond annoying - please for the love of god dont run into a pack of MOBs and Repel them all! If you're going to make a Controller, I beg you: PLEASE TAKE KINETICS. I'm such a Speed Boost Junky!!! Please....!!!

Thanks! I have a level 14 grav/FF controller who I was getting really unhappy with, feeling I had made wrong power choices. Now I see that I made the right choices, just the wrong battle tactics.

Holy lock down Gravity man!

I been playing my grav/FF for just a little while now but have already sensed the things of which you speek concerning total control. I had one guy tell me that crush sucked especially because the target could fire ranged attacks back at me... When I took him out on a hunt and simply "Crushed" a few bosses then force bolted them far away he started shutting up about it! When I used my hold so he could still hit the target and then pumped it with lifts he started smiling...

When I started giving him def buffs he fell in love with my toon! I love this combo! I'm only like level 13 but I dig it very much! I liked being able to use my personal FF to protect myself at level 1 while running through steel canyon just to sell my training enhancements at the hero corps store for maximum price while the others in my team would cringe at going to stell canyon even at level 10!

I'm so glad you made this guide! I had only seen guides on FF or gravity alone or with other secondaries that didn't seem to quite cover all the grav/ff combination goodness that is my controller. Why should I heal when my team isn't taking damage!!!

Thanks again and I'll have the printed version of this on my desk when I play my Grav/FF controler again this week.

I love your guide! I'm building a new hero right now (currently lvl 10) based on your guide. Wish me luck

A most excellent guide Doctor Gravity. However, playing devil's advocate, I've not found knockback to be needed with my grav/ff con. The philosophy I took with him was, "I do not do damage. I hold. I bubble. I do not solo. I am loved by my group. I rock."

Since I don't damage, lift & propel aren't worth the power slots. Since I am loved by my group (the scrappers & blasters in particular) knocking back or making the mobs intangible isn't very efficient. Since I bubble, my scrapper allies become mini-tanks (the leadership maneuvers & tactics help here), and they don't need the enemies pushed away (though I do stay closer to the melee than one might deem safe). Since I hold, I take pleasure in watching teammates practice their pinata skills. I rock.

I have just hit 32 and I can now add, "I love my pet singularity." It makes my holds that much more efficient for lts & bosses, since they have to be held twice successfully. The pet still hardly does damage, and I'm fine with that. I'll grant you without question that the singularity bomb-knockdown when casting it in the middle of a mob... oh so fun and rewarding.

So yeah, I'm not knocking (pun!) the zen of knockdown, I'm just saying the grav/ff combination makes the melee safe enough where you don't need to push anyone away. That said, I still have force bolt, for those utility times when I need to take a guy off of my blasters.

Just to reitterate, Doc Grav, you rock.

In general, I agree. A lot of places, knockback is not needed. However, our control only goes so far, (less, in many ways, than most other sets) and sooner or later, we're going to get into a fight where our standard holds and buffs aren't enough by themselves. So what do we do? Well, we have to make use of the tools we have available to us. And one thing that Grav/FF has in abundance is knockbacks. And when push comes to shove (heh) it's a better crowd control option than nothing. Keeping a boss on his/her back can mean the difference between sweet victory and bitter defeat in some circumstances. So I figure it it's not a bad idea for us to figure out all the tricks with knockback that we can in advance.

I agree, in general we have no trouble keeping things safe enough that this sort of thing isn't necessary. But sooner or later, there'll be a scary trial, AV fight, or respec trial. And we're glad that we have knockbacks if we need them.

But either way, glad you found at least something of use in the guide. Happy singularity-bombing.

Awesome guide. I have a level 13 Grav/FF controller and the combo is pretty awesome. I can't wait to get the Gravity Distortion field, as the Crushing Field is a bad way to hold the enemies down (IMO) since they become aggro'd and I get the beating.

Awesome guide! I've been keeping track of CoH for months now, planning what I want to play . Now that I finally have an account, a Grav/FF is what I want. Are there any recent updates to the game that would affect the content of the good Doctor's guide?

Awesome Guide.
I use a lot of the concepts. I still refer to a lot when I need to decide what power to get or what I might want to slot.
I have almost burned it into memory along with the A Guide to Sings by Scrapulous.
http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showf...part=1#1489494
Now that I've reached 33 almost 34 I'm so into my Grav/FF controller it's just an awesome laid back build.
I am looking forward to what the next levels bring, and even the axcillary PP / Epic PP.
I will probably end up with conserve power just to enhance the time and number of targets I can lock down.
Soloing reds and small orange groups is now very possible with Sings.
I have a few trusted folks that will just drag me around with recall friend and auto follow while I am AFK between bubbling rotations.

Chicklets (aka inspirations)

I think I actually buy them maybe once every 10 hours of game time, if that often. But that's just me.

<ul type="square">[*]Blues are your best friend [*]Lavender need a couple for those awkward moments when you get slepted or stunned and your always ons, aren't.[*]Yellows need them for GDF or for the named bosses or purples[*]Purples - if you are getting hit, you are doing something wrong. I use them as I get them to make room[*]Reds - give to someone who can use them[*]Resists - not needed often, just when you know you are facing lots of psi casters[*]greens - just in case you do get hit ...[*]Sky blues - one maybe two, rest I toss, I rarely, if ever, get dropped. Usually when I'm being cocky and/or stupid.[/list] Travel powers <ul type="square"> [*]I took Super Speed instead of Hover / flight. SS gives you stealth, that hover doesn't. LIke quaterbacks, I would occasionally get sacked by blitzes from, unblocked rushers, or unoccupied shooters that noticed I was annoying in the backfield. [*]When I remember I just pull back my camera and shift the field of view to overhead when I need more visibility over the battle, but even without that I can tell by the floaters and movement who needs my attention. [*]Prior to respecing post 32, I had to survive with a single slotted Hurdle to clear obstacles and ran with team that had recall friend. I now have Teleport, and swapped hurdle for health. Using TP and SS I can cross zones with ease.[/list]Damage

<ul type="square">[*]Learn to live with it, everyone else does more damage than you, give your reds to the damage dealers.[*]You can solo with as a Grav/FF controller, it's sometimes painfully slow, but it's very possible, with patience. [*]Most solo indoor mission have groups of 2 - 3. I can solo three reds safely with GDF, GD, Crush rotations.[*]Prior to Sings, I three slotted Crush with Damage, and 4-6 slotted GD with hold. Post 32, I respec'd Crush back to one damage, and GD to end reduc, one acc,four holds[*]I really considered retaining Lift, but I found that GD and Crush do about the same total damage as lift. I could alternate between GD and Crush for several minutes even with upto three targets. I decided to live without Lift and use that power choice for something else, because GD and Crush have to hit bonuses and Lift doesn't.[/list]
Knockback

<ul type="square">[*]For those of you that don't like KB, keep in mind it's a life saver when you need it. I used Force Bolt a lot to save my blaster, or myself from abuse, or to push bad guys, over walls, off buildings/bridges/cliffs. [*]I found repulsion field is even better, cheaper endurance wise, than FB per KB, as long as you can live without the range. With SS I can run up, punt them, and run back easily. [*]I found that using RF doesn't draw as much aggro, but it's awesome for sweeping bad guys off their feet. I was feeling rather helpless as the pet bubbler in a mission that was +5 relative to me. But when the Main and his SK got in trouble, I decide to go for broke and toggled RF. I was able to plow thru minions, Lts, and bosses with running passes like a speedboat throwing up a rooster tail. I didn't draw aggro that often. When they are flying backwards and getting up then couldn't hit us. Had to becareful of my end. Now I toggle RF to get myself some breath room, or to rescue a blaster or healer from a dogpile. [*]After I get Force Bubble, I am considering replacing RF with Repulsion Bomb during a post 40 respec.[/list]Wormhole

<ul type="square">[*]If you thought lift or lift-force bolt was fun, try Wormholing Straight up. With one range SO I do about 90 pts of damage, regardless of level. Downside is you don't get credit for damage if you are not the only one doing damage, and like heros, fall damage won't kill, but it will take them as far down as one. [*]Target them with GD as soon as WH begins and they won't move after WH finishes. Locked them down with GD or GDF before WH to prevent knocked back. I should just creat a bind/macro that executes WH, then toggle GD auto afterwards. But I'm lazy and keep Hasten running auto instead. Maybe I'll create a bind/macro chain that GDs, then WHs and autos GDs, then toggle my hasten back to auto.[*]Use range enhancements to extend not only the reach of WH, but also to increase the throw height. [*]I saw a posting in The Training Room I will have to remember to apply ... using the jails with a Sing in the doorway and then WH'ing everything into it. That's just mean, rude, crude, and totally acceptable. Except if it's done to my team.[*]Until I got Sings, WH was my best way of doing a lot of instant damage.[*]I also use WH to move villian into the AoE fires, ice patches, or just drop them into the melee pile so the damage dealers can stay in one place[*]GD or Crush pesky force field generators and DE emitters, then WH them behind you or away from the bad guys. Throwing the occasional GD or Crush will keep them from hindering your teams efforts, and they won't be replaced by their creators, because they are stil there. Detention field work for this too but it's harder to time and maintain the lock.[/list]Singularities

<ul type="square">[*]Sings making you lazy[*]Once you get them the world changes, you gain the ability to smash foes that you never thought you would ever get[*]Solo missions are now measured in instead of minutes instead of hours[*]You learn to hate portals and elevators [*] With one recharge SO, I can keep 1 - 2 out, With 4 Reduce recharge SOs, I can keep three up easily. [*]Watch out for getting caught up in the feeding frenzies and forgetting to re-bubble the groups.[*]Sings are awesome for creating a do not cross line, especially if you need to run. A sing with bubbles in a hallway will aggro and slow most pursuits if not stop them altogether.[*]Use recall friend to move them to move them somewhere nearby. I've used it to pull them thru elevators and portals. I only seem to get one this way. But I haven't tried it again for a while. [*]Try and tell the blasters and defenders to park next to, or even inside my sings to avoid getting punched.[/list]
Things I haven't done yet, mostly out of laziness, but could have done instead of writing this guide ....

[1] binds/macros that:
<ul type="square">[*]Explain in short bites my strength and weakness: minimal damage,awesome crowd controlling, bubbling, Detention fields, the fact that I can lock down a boss or two, indefinitely, but the massive number of minions that are hovering right now are going to kick my tail in about 30 secs if they don't leave the floating bosses alone, it's easier for me to keep everyone bubbled if I can bubble from top to bottom rather than keep track individual bubbling[*]Tell folks that they are out of range or line of site for bubbles[*]Tell folks to enable or disable TP prompt with me around[*]Tell folks that they need are getting pummelled because they are no longer protected by bubble[*]Chain bubbling[*]Tell the group you are dropping and reinvite you so you can be on the top or bottom of the list - (easier to visually track bubbling)[*]binding teleport to control - left click[*]Creating Macros that add chat and emotes to powers,or even rotating chat .... (Oh, if I only had the time ...) [*]Toggle my always on stuff - Super Speed and Dispersion Bubble[*]Retoggle Hasten to auto[*]Toggle TP prompt if possible[/list]
SgtYork
Two Bald Guys, Inc
Justice Server

Now that I reached 47 and can slot my HOs I also respec'd to based on some ideas and suggestions

I'm still into my Grav/FF controller it's just an awesome laid back build.

Chicklets (aka inspirations)

I think I actually buy them maybe once every 10 hours of game time, if that often. But that's just me.


Blues are your best friend - with stamina and conserve power 4 slotted ... I don't use them that often, but I like to share.

Lavender need a couple for those awkward moments when you get slepted or stunned and your always ons, aren't.

Yellows need them for GDF or for the named bosses or purples

Purples - if you are getting hit, you are doing something wrong. I use them as I get them to make room

Reds - give to someone who can use them - but now that I have Power Blast six slotted .... hmmm I can do about 200pts of damage.

greens - just in case you do get hit ...

Sky blues - one maybe two, rest I toss, I rarely, if ever, get dropped. Usually when I'm being cocky and/or stupid.


Travel powers


I took Super Speed instead of Hover / flight. SS gives you stealth, that hover doesn't. LIke quaterbacks, I would occasionally get sacked by blitzes from, unblocked rushers, or unoccupied shooters that noticed I was annoying in the backfield.

When I remember I just pull back my camera and shift the field of view to overhead when I need more visibility over the battle, but even without that I can tell by the floaters and movement who needs my attention.

Prior to respecing post 32, I had to survive with a single slotted Hurdle to clear obstacles and ran with team that had recall friend. I now have Teleport, and swapped hurdle for health. Using TP and SS I can cross zones with ease.


Damage


Learn to live with it, everyone else does more damage than you, give your reds to the damage dealers.

You can solo with as a Grav/FF controller, it's sometimes painfully slow, but it's very possible, with patience.

Most solo indoor mission have groups of 2 - 3. I can solo three reds safely with GDF, GD, Crush rotations.

Prior to Sings, I three slotted Crush with Damage, and 4-6 slotted GD with hold. Post 32, I respec'd Crush back to one damage, and GD to end reduc, one acc,four holds

I really considered retaining Lift, but I found that GD and Crush do about the same total damage as lift. I could alternate between GD and Crush for several minutes even with upto three targets. I decided to live without Lift and use that power choice for something else, because GD and Crush have to hit bonuses and Lift doesn't.

Now I just alternate Power Blast and GD ... stuff falls down a lot faster now. I should have taken PB at 41 and six slotted it back then ... but live and learn. I strongly considered taking the PSI Aux powers, but opted for the Primal, even respec'd out of temp invulnerability. If I'm taking damage, something is wrong ...

Knockback


For those of you that don't like KB, keep in mind it's a life saver when you need it. I used Force Bolt a lot to save my blaster, or myself from abuse, or to push bad guys, over walls, off buildings/bridges/cliffs.

I found repulsion field is even better, cheaper endurance wise, than FB per KB, as long as you can live without the range. With SS I can run up, punt them, and run back easily.

I found that using RF doesn't draw as much aggro, but it's awesome for sweeping bad guys off their feet. I was feeling rather helpless as the pet bubbler in a mission that was +5 relative to me. But when the Main and his SK got in trouble, I decide to go for broke and toggled RF. I was able to plow thru minions, Lts, and bosses with running passes like a speedboat throwing up a rooster tail. I didn't draw aggro that often. When they are flying backwards and getting up then couldn't hit us. Had to becareful of my end. Now I toggle RF to get myself some breath room, or to rescue a blaster or healer from a dogpile.

After I got Force Bubble, I am considering replacing RF with Repulsion Bomb during a post 40 respec. I did respec out of FB mostly because I very rarely got to use it, and in order to use it I had to keep it six slotted. RF is only two slotted freeing up 4 slots for other stuff.


Wormhole

I hated the AoE for a long time ... then I started playing with it. I WH group into walls, into the air, into the floor, in place, I use it as a combo follow up for GD in most fights these days. I am not as completely happy with it as I was, but it does get a lot more use than it did as a single target power.
Range is shorter, recharge little longer? but still nice.
If you thought lift or lift-force bolt was fun, try Wormholing Straight up. With one range SO I do some damage, regardless of level. Downside is you don't get credit for damage if you are not the only one doing damage, and like heros, fall damage won't kill, but it will take them as far down as one.

Target them with GD as soon as WH begins and they won't move after WH finishes. Locked them down with GD or GDF before WH to prevent knocked back. I should just creat a bind/macro that executes WH, then toggle GD auto afterwards. But I'm lazy and keep Hasten running auto instead. Maybe I'll create a bind/macro chain that GDs, then WHs and autos GDs, then toggle my hasten back to auto.

Use range enhancements to extend not only the reach of WH, but also to increase the throw height.

I saw a posting in The Training Room I will have to remember to apply ... using the jails with a Sing in the doorway and then WH'ing everything into it. That's just mean, rude, crude, and totally acceptable. Except if it's done to my team.

Until I got Sings, WH was my best way of doing a lot of instant damage.

I also use WH to move villian into the AoE fires, ice patches, or just drop them into the melee pile so the damage dealers can stay in one place

Can't really do this with WH anymore, but I did consider getting Teleport foe ... GD or Crush pesky force field generators and DE emitters, then WH them behind you or away from the bad guys. Throwing the occasional GD or Crush will keep them from hindering your teams efforts, and they won't be replaced by their creators, because they are stil there. Detention field work for this too but it's harder to time and maintain the lock.


Singularities


Sings making you lazy

Once you get them the world changes, you gain the ability to smash foes that you never thought you would ever get

Solo missions are now measured in instead of minutes instead of hours

You learn to hate portals and elevators

With one recharge SO, I can keep 1 - 2 out, With 4 Reduce recharge SOs, I can keep three up easily.

Watch out for getting caught up in the feeding frenzies and forgetting to re-bubble the groups.

Sings are awesome for creating a do not cross line, especially if you need to run. A sing with bubbles in a hallway will aggro and slow most pursuits if not stop them altogether.

Use recall friend to move them to move them somewhere nearby. I've used it to pull them thru elevators and portals. Yes, your teammates can also do this too, and pull up the other sings with them.
Try and tell the blasters and defenders to park next to, or even inside my sings to avoid getting punched.

This rocks - binding teleport to control - left click

Whew! Been reading all of the juicy Controller threads without being able to reply. At least for this weekend I can.

This concept still merits attention methinks. Are there any significant updates that need to be done?

This setup was done before ED so singularites need to be reworked. Otherwise a good build. Might need to look at the other powers for this is before ed build and much has changed in the game

Are there any I8/9 compliant grav/ff guides out there?

Still looking for that I8/9 compliant grav/ff giude........

PVP update....People this toon RULES for PVP, I have key pvp powers force bubble (which keeps melee toons out of range and sends them flying)...I bubble my singularity then personal ff and heal self (very important) when im getting low on health, which btw allows me to take on ~4 guys at once only spines impale gave me any sort of trouble because of the -fly (when pff was not up of course, this just grounded a slowed me a bit nothing major...fly im still not sure about as a travel). Planning on taking tactics so i can see hidden stalkers get hurled out of range. I cant stress to you how good force bubble is for pvp and pve, i respeced out of repulsion field because eventually the draining of end for each knockback will get to you. WIth force bubble you could kb a stadium full of toons and its all the same end. As far as i can tell gravity is one of the least resisted powers out there, I dont know of anyone who has resistance so my primaries mess people up and the containment dmg is nice. Wormhole is great for tping toons right into your control range so a potential pvp chain... worm &gt; holds &gt; force bubble {launches (held maybe) toon} &gt; (containment double dmg) propel &gt; holds &gt; propel... Very good pvp toon and if you happen to end up on a pvp team your bubble buffs with tip the scales of the battle as everyone knows deflection and insulation shield are uber powerful. Watch out for Living Aether on infinity server in WB and RV.

I've put up an I-9 grav/ff guide here:

Controlling Time and Space - Grav/FF Guide [I9]

A great read, ive a much under appreciated grav/bubble controller who is gonna get dusted off and see some action now.