Fire/Storm Splattroller Build Guide

Splattroller: Fire Storm
<font class="small">Code:[/color]<hr /><pre> I. Intro
II. Splattroller: What and Why
1. Incomplete Area Control, Damage, Survival Brinksmanship
2. Containment, Weak Debt, Power-Resting
III. The Build: Fire/Storm
IV. Tactics
1. Stock Tactics
a. Checklist
b. Variants (Earlier levels)
2. Other Tactics
a. Bonfire Antics
b. Three Other Powers
c. Just the Control
d. Stealth Mode
V. Challenges &amp; Opportunities
1. Stupid Teammates
2. Who to team with
3. Bosses (Ouch)
4. Teh Grind
VI. Various Splattroller Builds
1. Fire, Mind
2. Storm, Rad, Kinetics, Trick Arrow</pre><hr />

Intro

This guide, if it can be called that, is two things: a build guide, and an abstract discussion of a playstyle.

It is not an in-depth overview of the Fire Control set, Storm Summoning set, is not an overview of the variety of things that can be done with fire and storm, nor even a complete-to-50 build. It is not a thorough discussion of area damage oriented ATs, how to build a damage-oriented controller, or how to do anything in PvP.

Splattroller: What and Why

As the name suggests, the splattroller is a controller variant, with added splat. The splat in splattroller is:

1) Focus on area effects
2) Reliant on incomplete control
3) High damage
4) Survival brinksmanship

Why? Part of the reason is that, for folks accustomed to some of the more traditional pure controller approaches to the game (pet-herder-wannabes like typical Fire/Kin and Illusion/Rad or /Emp, heavy area control sets like typical earth/storm, extreme safety builds like typical Mind/Emp and /Forcefield), the splattroller is an entertaining novelty.

Another is that it's surprisingly effective, especially in the post-I5 world. Three crucial changes that have brought splattrollers to the fore (two of them are rarely discussed):

1) Containment-- controller damage doubled on anything immobilized, disoriented, held, or slept.

2) Debt isn't nearly as bad as it used to be, and is negligible in missions. (When you go splat, it's not that big a deal.)

3) Rest recharge reduction-- the power to rapidly get back all your health recharges a lot more quickly nowadays (how much exactly, I'm not sure.)

To be plain, your controller is going to have tactics somewhere between a tanker and a blaster, odd though that sounds. You're going to expect to be under active fire-- not only survive it, but in some cases welcome it as a preface to clustering mobs up to their doom. You're also relying, in the end, on the form of mitigation blasters use every day: defeat is 100% mitigation. And ultimately, if you die, it's just not a big deal in CoH anymore, especially while solo. (Integrating splattrollers into teams is, as with any damage-oriented character, something that requires thought. More on that later.)

With a splattroller, if you have 1 hp left when the last foe goes down, you win. This is true for everyone, but it's the guiding principle of splattrollers.

The Build: Fire/Storm

This build represents the fire/storm splattroller to level 29:

<font class="small">Code:[/color]<hr /><pre>
01 Char /Acc,Rchg (1,3)
01 Gale /Acc,Acc (1,5)
02 Fire Cages /Acc,End,Rchg,End,Acc (2,3,5,7,7)
04 Snow Storm /End (4)
06 Hasten /Rchg,Rchg,Rchg (6,21,25)
08 Hot Feet /End,Acc,Dmg,Dmg,Acc,Dmg (8,9,9,11,11,15)
10 Hurdle /Jump (10)
12 Flashfire /Acc,Acc,Rchg,Rchg,Dis,Dis(12,13,13,15,17,19)
14 Super speed /Run (14)
16 Freezing Rain/Rchg,End,Rchg,Rchg (16,17,19,21)
18 Steamy Mist /End (18)
20 Health /Heal (20)
22 Stamina /EMod,EMod,EMod (22,23,23)
24 Cinders /Acc,Rchg,Rchg,Acc (24,25,27,27)
26 Hurricane /AccDbf (26)
28 Thunderclap /Acc,Rchg,Rchg (28,29,29)
</pre><hr />


Tactics

Stock Tactics Checklist
1. Turn on Steamy Mist &amp; Super speed
2. Find well clustered spawn of 5-12 mobs, -1 to +3 con
3. Outside of aggro radius, turn on hotfeet and untoggle super speed.
4. Pop flashfire on the guy in the middle of the group, and queue fire cages while animation plays.
5. Click freezing rain as soon as fire cages begins, and place while trotting toward group.
6. Char the most dangerous mob (and untoggle steamy mist).
7. Fire Cages
9. Repeat 6 &amp; 7 until spawn dead, firing Cinders &amp; Thunderclap, and using inspirations if necessary for safety.
10. Turn on steamy mist and super speed, while recovering if necessary.
11. Repeat 2-10 until level, then train and do enhancement maintenance.
12. Repeat 2-11 until fall asleep or hit 50, whichever comes first.

Variants at earlier levels

Before 29, you're going to have progressively fewer options to stop your nicely clustered foes from killing you, so caution and optimal use of inspirations is crucial. Don't even try +3 mobs before 29. Don't try +2s until 27.

Before L22, you're going to be running with DOs and without stamina, so you will know pain from endurance use. Not that this will ever go away completely, but look forward to the happy day of Stamina being three-slotted with SOs. Make SURE you untoggle superspeed promptly in step 3, and untoggle steamy mist as part of step 6, unless proximity of other mobs means you just can't, in which case, I hope you have teammates, because your end isn't going to last the fight.

Before 16, you wont have the wonderful freezing rain to throw in. This is a sad thing. Long wistfully for level 16 and freezing rain.

Before 14 or so, you're going to have no stealth at all, be moving slowly, and often not even have flashfire available. This is OK-- just hotfeet and fire cages can get the job done at this level, if you fight even cons or below, and if you don't stand right up next to any heavy melee hitters. It also means a slower trip back from the hospital to any missions you're doing. There's always snowstorm in a pinch, but you're ordinarily going to floor your end bar before the fight is over trying to run it with hotfeet and fire cages at early levels.

Other Tactics

Bonfire Antics
Bonfire, a power I've not played with yet myself, is a placed-area knockback field with good damage. As I understand it, using it well consistently requires some skill, but it can be placed on the opposite side of you from a group, and you can put the foe between Hell and a Hot Place. This is a completely valid extension of splattrolling beyond level 29.

Three Other Powers
The beauty of this build is that its roast-and-freeze approach is far from the only way you can make yourself useful. For starters, notice three powers I didn't even mention in the stock tactics:

Hurricane-- this is an impressive accuracy debuff *and* a push and knockdown tool enhanced further by a *range* debuff (the only one I can think of in the game). You can stand still and use it to defend someone else or a location, or you can run around and tap the bad guys with it repeatedly to keep them debuffed. And you can bunch them up into a corner fairly effectively, too, with a little practice.

Snowstorm-- doing your part against an AV whom you can't really hold is a lot easier with this slow. It's also not a bad way to pull mobs in a solo mission, since if you have to catch the attention of a bunch of MoBs, it's nice to have them slowed, and the slow's area of effect does a tidy job of "sweeping" the hall your anchor comes moseying down.

Gale-- sure, it's not an ubar power, but under the right circumstances, it can be used for mitigation-- it does knock down/back, after all, and if you're on a balcony, so much the better. It also takes fliers out of the air, which can be a real plus in the absence of flight or superjump.

Just the Control
Also useful are the more stock applications of your various powers. Really problem mobs (mezzers, healers, mezzer/healers, hello Tsoo sorcerer!) can always be charred into submission.

Flashfire, cinders, and thunderclap are, together, an enormous amount of area control. Consider:

With 2 Acc/2 Rchg/2 Dur (L +2 SOs):
Thunderclap: 31/26 control/sec, minions only.
Flashfire: 23/52 control/sec, minions &amp; lieuts.
Cinders: 23/139 control/sec, minions &amp; lieuts.

Control totals:
Minion: 1.8 control/sec
Lieut: 0.6 control/sec + .2 from overlap
Boss: 0.0 control/sec + .6 from overlap.

Now consider adding char to pick up slack holding lieuts and bosses, and how much control you can conserve by firing area controls intelligently, rather than in a nonstop cycle. This is a gargantuan amount of well-segmented control, if you decide you want to use it all.

BY THE WAY (this seems like as good a place to note it as any), thunderclap is a mag-2 disorient. You can't disorient lieutenants with it alone, but it does stack with flashfire, for a total of 5 mag, which is enough to disorient not only lieutenants but *bosses*.

Stealth Mode
Furthermore, with super speed and steamy mist, you have full-fledged invisibility. You can scout, you can (at least for the moment still) stealth through clickable-objective missions. You can get into position to gale the badguys where you want them. You can hang out near your team in order to keep them from being seen until the last second. And if you can handle the endurance, being down front running steamy mist does help defend the melee folks.

The splattroller, in other words, has a lot to offer as a traditional controller/defender in very conservative fights.

Challenges &amp; Opportunities

One of your biggest challenges as a splattroller is going to be dealing with teammates. Many Controllers and Defenders, as well as some Tanks, like to insist that squishies never take serious aggro, and certainly never hang out in melee range of the badguys. Because you're going to be doing these things, you're going to be treated frequently to derision. Controllers are generally a bunch of obsessive, narrow-minded know-it-alls, and they're liable to be the worst of the lot.

"ZOMG LOL. ur playin like u think ur a tank. learn to control"

I so love being told how to play by people who're proud of their inability to think outside the box.

You're also going to be in the same boat as Fire Tankers, Spines and Dark Armor Scrappers, Fire and AR Blasters, Rad Defenders, and everyone else who does good area damage. I know that sounds like a fair # of folks, but surprisingly few players understand the advantages of heavy area effects. Effective use of area damage and control means not having teammates who knock everything around constantly, so you're going to be disenchanted quick with energy blasters, illusion controllers, and the like. My advice would be, make friends with team-domineering tanks who know, practice, and insist on good mob clustering techniques. (Here's how to find out: Simply ask them if they understand breaking LoS.) Make friends with a spines/dark scrapper or two if you can, too-- these are some of the few people you're not going to make feel inadequate with your area damage output; they'll be right there with you.

Another big challenge is going to be mezzers, bosses, and especially mezzing bosses. This will start to really interfere with your normal approach in the late 20s. The bright side of this problem is that almost everyone does more single-target damage (or control) than you, but you can solo 12 minions as quickly and safely as any three single-target specialists. A team with you plus a couple people who can deal with bosses and heavy mezzers is an unstoppable team!

When your tolerance for grinding permits, you may find that for a certain portion of your career, hunting zombies in Dark Astoria is lucrative. Boomtown, likewise. Perez, Faultline, and the Hollows can also work, but they tend to contain a higher frequency of bosses, so you'll probably want to at least duo those groups (although hydras in Everett lake and gangbangers on the streets in Perez are often boss-free; you just have to watch carefully.)

Various Splattroller Builds

Fire control, and specifically Hotfeet, is nearly indispensable to any splattroller build.

In fact, the only other set with a significant area damage power that benefits from containment is Mind Control (Terrify), but this power doesn't come in until level 26. To use Mind in this way, you'll also need to have Mass Hypnosis and Total domination ready to go as often as possible. Mind as a splattroller blossoms much later than Fire, is safer, probably so much so that meeting the "survival brinksmanship" requirement for splattrollers before it becomes flat-out impossible to hit mobs will be hard. Mass Confusion as a component of a Splattroller lends an interesting twist to it as well. But in the main, splattrollers will be fire controllers.

Secondaries that might enable splattrolling in some fashion or another are a little easier to find.

Storm is the obvious pick.

Radiation is the next best bet-- Enervating field is a great resistance debuff, and could readily be used to get the most out of your containment damage, replacing freezing rain. Radiation Infection's also going to be an added element of survivability in a splattroller build. Plus you have two other area controls-- choking cloud and EMP. Choking cloud needs 3 durations and a couple end reduxas well as rad infection, before you can use it properly.

Kinetics can also be used to splattroll; siphon power at the start, and at the end, fulcrum shift, can certainly boost your damage capacity, which is the goal. Meanwhile, you'll actually get to benefit from your own uses of transfusion if you're in hotfeet range anyhow.

Finally, though it's rarely used and I've not seen many of its powers, the Trick Arrow set is available to controllers, and Disruption Arrow and Oil Slick Arrow are both highly feasible splattroller additions. The only problem being that they don't even start to give you an edge as a splattroller until very, very late.

Nice guide, Enan. My main is a Fire/Storm, though he's not quite a Splatroller. For one thing, I started him close to 2 years ago, and Containment wasn't on the cards then. For another, he was built with a certain story/origin in mind, and is not completely min-maxed (no Smoke *sob*).

In teams, I play him more as a support mezzer who happens to do a little damage, and this tends to work out surprisingly well despite what people say about Fire's lack of control. I'd say that my Storm secondary is one major reason for this success.

By the way, I intend to pick up Bonfire eventually, mostly just to add a little more damage to my chain when soloing. According to Sherk's planner, it does a decent 2.727BI of fire damage to a 20' area over 10 tics. This actually puts it at the top of the area damage chart for Fire/Storm, though I am uncertain at this point just how many of those tics we can rely on. I'll be counting on the 10 (8?) second root period of Fire Cages to keep mobs from getting knocked back. If necessary, I could always layer FC for extended rooting.

One last thing: have you considered slotting Flash Fire for damage? Its base disorient duration is a good 30 seconds, and the power actually has a pretty substantial damage component. A Flash Fire (2 dam) --&gt; Fire Cages --&gt; Freezing Rain (2 dam) --&gt; Fire Ball (3 dam) --&gt; Bonfire (3 dam) combo does 21.52 damage to everything in your attack radius in a matter of 9.5 seconds, and that's before factoring in Containment, FR's resist reduction, Hot Feet and Imps. Add in Assault and you've really got a barbeque.

Edit: That's 9.5 seconds of attack time. I believe some of the DoT in that chain would still be ticking after this period, so the chain actually does slightly less damage within this time frame.

how did I miss this guide?
Aurora Girl was asking about Fire/Storm in the controller forums, and responding to her I started getting excited about the potential for the buikd and designed on for myself.
Currently sitting at 16, I want to wait for I8 before I move on with.

Lots of fun, not for the faint of heart, not for the newbie, and not for you ifyou hate going down in flames once in while. The upside is that when it works it's beautiful! What controller at levle 15 can say they get half the kills on an 8 man team? what controller at level 15 (except maybe for /emp) hears "you can't go, we'll never be able to finish this without you!", "can I add you to my friends list?"
this build has a lot of WOW! factor and os far I don;t die any more often than any other AT I have played (I am however a rather experienced player, including a lot of controller experience)

I am somewhat concerned about the 20s however. at 16 mezzing mobs are few and far between, but getting detoggled can mean instant debt in the 20s. I guess I'll need to play less aggressively (awww) and rely more on controlling.

I do have a few questions:

is bonfire that good? I tried it on my fore/kin and didn;t think it did that much damage. It's a nice control but a bit situational for my taste.

You only use Steamy Mist for invisibility. this seems to be the perfect build for slotting it for DmgRes, giving you an extra layer of survivability for thosshots that do get through. its only disadvantages are endurance usgage and the fact that it doesn't protect agains S/L (you need to wait till the epic shields to do that, unless you go for Tough whcih isn't great on a controller and requires 2 power slots).

I am considering dropping Hurricane. It's a great power, I'm taking it on my Grav/Storm, but there are so many powers I want to take.

what do you think about Ring of Fire? It's OK single target damage and can help you take bosses quicker, on the other hand it's not that much damage. I respec'd out of it on Hand of Baahr, my fire/kin.

Well, in my last post all those months ago, I was using numbers from Sherk Silver's planner. Those numbers are wildly wrong.

Information from City of Data confirms that using Flashfire for damage is ridiculous. Bonfire does almost as much damage as Hot Feet, but that damage does not benefit from Containment and is a chore to keep up (since you'd have to keep reapplying Fire Cages for -KB).

true, I never tried to use bonfire for damage with Firecages, which is porbably why I didn;t see it asa damage power, mobs where getting hit once and tossed back. I doubt I'll take it.

Gotta love Enantiodromos for his contributions to the controller community on these forums. I just started a Fire/TA who I plan to run some splat with. If he keeps my attention that burning oil slick will be some serious fun.

MY fire/storm's sort of turned into a control-weak splatroller. All I'll add is that sometimes ditching the immob from fire cages isn't a bad idea. Between FR, snowstorm, and hot feet, you can get a wicked amount of slow, and if they're slowed rather than immobilized, they'll spend time trying to get into melee range rather than standing still shooting at you. The trade off is that it's harder to get containment.

Interesting guide, though!

So, just some food for thought. Over the 2x XP weekend I added a level to my Fire/Storm among several others, so I revisited the idea of splattrolling in the 40s.

The question is, is it still viable?

I was trying to put together a collection of numbers that tightly represent what the relevant fire and storm powers can do. These numbers fail to account for two things, which I admit constitute a significant gap: they represent the powers in question NOT being slotted for recharge (though they do cover dmg slotting), and they don't represent realistic constraints based on end cost or (though I don't think this would have much effect here) attack chains.

The real question is, does hotfeet remain a relevant form of damage? I've always been troubled by people saying they specced it out in the 40s because its damage contribution was insignificant next to imps and fireball. Here's how it looks for a fire/storm that slots no recharges and has no end constrains (so, okay, maybe he slots end redux instead of recharge):
<font class="small">Code:[/color]<hr /><pre>
One MOb
3xImp Brawl 37.73%
L-Storm Attack 22.21%
Fireball 15.46%
Char 10.97%
Hot Feet 9.89%
Fire Cages 3.50%
Flashfire 0.24%
Freezing Rain 0.01%
.
.
Three MObs
Fireball 26.37%
L-Storm Attack 22.72%
3xImp Brawl 21.44%
Hot Feet 16.86%
Char 6.23%
Fire Cages 5.96%
Flashfire 0.40%
Freezing Rain 0.01%
.
.
Nine MObs
Fireball 34.47%
L-Storm Attack 23.10%
Hot Feet 22.04%
3xImp Brawl 9.34%
Fire Cages 7.79%
Char 2.72%
Flashfire 0.53%
Freezing Rain 0.00%
.
.
Sixteen MObs
Fireball 36.96%
Hot Feet 23.63%
L-Storm Attack 23.22%
Fire Cages 8.36%
3xImp Brawl 5.63%
Char 1.64%
Flashfire 0.56%
Freezing Rain 0.00%
</pre><hr />

Now, I never said splattrolling vs one mob at a time was a good idea. I would say there was a point in it in the 20s and 30s vs 3 or more mobs. Sure, now it might take more mobs to really justify it than it used to, but if you're on a team that doesn't have overwhelming damage output, I still think you can contribute meaningfully with the classic hotfeet + firecages approach. By the time you're up against 8 or 9 badguys, hotfeet is in the same league as your very best.

Oh-- two other things that might look screwy, both with lightning storm; I let lightning storm with its small AoE scale with # of mobs at x0.4 to the other AoE powers' x1.0.... and it now occurs to me that I also didn't acccount for downtime of lightning storm in this "no recharges," model.

very interesting indeed. I've been taking my time with my lower level controllers, so my Fire/Storm is only 36.

I have been toying with the idea of respec'ing out of Hotfeet, although the main drive was because it's "incompatible" with Hurricane (which I ended up taking, I was kind of on the fence there) and it would allow me to take Bonfire, a power I'm still not enemored with but that provide another means of control.

In the end, more than damage %, the asnwer might be in playstyle. In teams I am primarily a controller, and I don;t really need hotfeet, since I concentrate on holds, disorrients, debuffs and mob positionning with Gale and Hurricane.

Solo I use hurricane more sparingly, and hotfeet more, even though even on unyeilding the spawn sizes are still pretty small solo.
The best use I have for Hotfeet in the 30s is street hunting in Brickstown, where I can find large groups of mobs (especially council, crey and prisonners) and melt them down efficiently.

I think I'll keep with HotFeet for a while longer, but I'll keep monitoring this thread for comparison with what other Fire/Storms think.

By the way, I still love that toon

Oh, I shoulda also mentioned, under the paper circumstances above, for total damage output, 3 mobs = x1.76 damage, 9 mobs= x4.0 dmg, 16 mobs = x6.7 dmg.

Well, I've followed the splattroller philosophy pretty closely and now have a lvl 41 Fire/Storm that is likely my fastest leveling toon ever. Damage, control, chaos - he's got it all!

My question now is... What next? It is time to choose an Epic powerset, but this is my first controller and I'm not sure which direction I should go. Hibernate looks tasty (regenning while pets go wild!) but Fireball seems like a good idea too. Any thoughts/anecdotes would be appreciated.

I like Mind for the PvE game because of IW. If you are magic you will be fighting Carnies all the time and you probably want Archmage Accolade and those Illusionists are really nasty. Psionic Tornado is a fun splatorriffic attack. The single target mental blast is lame from a fun standpoint at least.

Actually I think all of them are doable with probably Earth taking the most flak. I specced into Earth on test and it was fun using Hurl after containment. You get the feeling of I am about to kick total butt.

I am working on a splattroller as well fire\ta however. my plan is to use Bonfire, Oil Slick, Hot Feet, Glue Arrow as my control. Opening up with Smoke and Flash for a 10% to hit debuff.

i saw this title and thought "hey that sounds like my controller for pressure cookers" then i saw your name and head palming did ensue.
i love that character concept and watching those numbers melt away in mobs of 8 and more is amazing. I for one love PUGs and when i end up with a group with no tanker and i say "oh its ok, ill do a little tanking" i get crazy responses. But once I get in the middle drop that hotfeet and the ring of fire its a totally different set of comments then.

hotfeet+RoF = tanking? I'm not following you

definetly a toggle worthy guide for both fire trollers and stormys of the troller/defender type everywhere.
rating 4 stars
I give you the yet unheard of zorro snap in z formation!