You should be writing guides for a living.
You do a very good job.
The Avalanche has already started, it is too late for the pebbles to vote.
Blue Spot, Son Spot, Cyan Siren, Polar Gale, Scarlett Fury, Stygian Warlock, Lady Lilac, Elsbeth (villian), Furious Squirrel (villian)
Infinity server
Very nice post. I have a lvl46 fire/rad/fire and you are correct about area damage on this one! Easy solo toon.
ArciticBurn Lvl 50 Fire/ice/fire Tank Champion
NovaBlade Lvl 50 Kat/SR Scrapper Liberty
PowerForce Lvl 50 Erg/Erg blaster Liberty
GreenFlame Lvl 50 Fire/Rad/fire Troller Champion
Many many more
There is no such thing as a cowardly zombie.
Acid Arrow damage is minor DoT. Think Caltrops level of damage. Oil Slick is pretty decent damage, although most of it DoT. My Hero planer says 12.6 BI 3 slotted for dmg.
I've met one /TA controller that only considered it only a control power (the click part) until I pointed out to him he could light it. He sent me a tell a few days later saying how much he loved the extra damage!
CONTAINMENT AND CONTROLLERS
AS A DAMAGE-ORIENTED AT, PVE
I. Intro
II. Powers that Set Containment
III. Single Target or Area Damage?
IV. Area Damage
V. Single Target
VI. Secondaries Enhancing Damage
VII. Secondary Direct Damage, Containment
IIX. Pets
IX. Pool Attacks
X. Fast Answer
INTRO
In I5, Controllers gained a new power, an inherent called "Containment." It allows controllers to do double damage (resembling a scrapper crit) on EVERY hit to any mob that is at that moment immobilized, slept, held, or disoriented (but NOT, BTW, feared, confused slowed, knocked down, etc) regardless of who applied the mez (including other controllers or even other ATs with holds, sleeps, disorients or immobs.)
(Like every rule, this has a couple exceptions. There are a few controller powers that do not get containment at all. Brawl (the inherent) and all the pet damage powers, do not double even when the target is held, etc. Similarly, pseudo-pets like tornado and freezing rain, do not do doubled damage. Finally, two powers, Spectral Wounds and Jumpkick, get containment but the extra damage is lesser than expected-- in the case of Spectral Wounds because of the way some of that damage is illusory, and in the case of Jumpkick, presumed to be a bug.)
All controller sets have some of these powers that put a mob in a state so that you can do double your damage-- in other words they "set containment."
POWERS THAT SET CONTAINMENT
Earth, Ice, Fire, and Gravity each have both a single-target and an AoE immobilize-- these powers are typically your best bet for cheaply and enduringly setting containment.
All the sets have a single-target and an area hold as well, that accomplish the same thing, though the single-target holds tend to be more important for actually controlling, and the area holds tend to have durations much shorter and recharges much longer than makes them practical for setting containment.
Fire, Earth, and Gravity have area disorients that are not unlike area holds in terms of setting containment, except that they tend to last a little longer and recharge a little faster.
Ice, Earth, and Mind all have an area sleep that'll set containment-- but only once, since sleeps are broken when you do damage to the mob in question, which tends to make them impractical for setting containment, except on Mind Controllers, who do good burst AoE damage with terrify.
Mind has a single-target sleep that'll set containment.
SINGLE TARGET OR AREA DAMAGE?
Once you're set up for containment, though, you'll need to actually do damage. Through the first 45 levels of a controller's career prior to having fireball slotted out, there are limited options for doing significant area damage to mobs. What that means is, the AoE containment setters are mostly worthless for damage dealing except on the two sets that have their own good area damage tools-- Mind and Fire.
But area Damage kills more badguys. So why would you wanna do single target damage? Because it lets you do something visible and useful, and still stay alive to control and de/buff. Area damage dealing is dangerous unless your control or your teammates' team-defense is iron clad.
AREA DAMAGE
Mind has Terrify as it's 8th tier power, a decent damage cone with a high end cost, significant recharge, and pretty nice control to boot.
Fire has Hotfeet. Hotfeet's a respectable tick of damage every two seconds in a point-blank Area of Effect toggle. That means, stand near badguys, and they hurt a LOT, if they're contained and you're getting 2x damage ticks every 2 seconds.
These are both interesting ways to do damage as a controller, but they're sorta extreme approaches to doing it.
SINGLE TARGET DAMAGE
Most sets do adequately or well at setting containment single-target. Some sets definitely do better than others at single target damage. Those sets are Gravity, Mind, and Illusion.
Gravity's probably the best-- it has crush and gravity distort, which both set containment, and both deal respectable damage. It also has lift, a good single target damage attack, and propel, a *fantastic* single target damage attack. Both the attacks are kinda slowish, though. Soloing bosses, you'll love them. Trying to clean out a big span of -1 minions paired with a fast-moving scrapper, you'll wonder why you bothered.
Mind also does well, but has minor issues setting containment. It has dominate and mesmerize to set containment, but mesmerize is a sleep, and gets broken when damage is applied. On the up side, though, mesmerize like dominate deals a very respectable amount of damage, not to mention that it can one-shot sleep bosses. AND, it can be used repeatedly on the same target without the target waking up and getting a chance to attack, which means mesmerize alone can be used repeatedly to kill bosses with containment. And if you're careful about cycling it with dominate, you should be able to have several mobs under total control. Finally, mind has levitate, which is another good damage power, and unlike the others, is smashing damage instead of lethal.
Illusion is like an exaggerated version of Mind, when it comes to dealing single-target damage. Its only way to set containment is blind. Blind is fine, and a hold that does fair damage. There just happens to be no second containment setter for single targets. On the upside, illusion has a great single-target damage power in spectral wounds.
For single target damage, the other three sets are pretty much a question of their single target immob + their single target hold. Fire with it's ticks of damage-over-time, probably comes out on top among these three.
SECONDARIES THAT ENHANCE DAMAGE
Kinetics has probably the best damage enhancing abilities-- siphon power and siphon speed increase how hard and how often you hit (except siphon speed doesn't increase how many ticks of damage you do per second with hotfeet), and then at L38, you get fulcrum shift, the granddaddy of all damage buffs, which should readily cap your damage before you double it with containment-- this is the reason you see *most* people (but not me) complaining about controller damage-- they're really complaining about Fire/Kinetics(/fire). Anyhow, kinetics is very strong all around for damage dealing.
Radiation Emission is also very strong for dealing damage. The reason is mainly Enervating Field, which substantially debuffs enemy resistances. The self-buff of Acellerate Metabolism also helps, as do the regeneration debuffs in radiation powers.
Storm has one big key to damage dealing-- freezing rain. FR like EF heavily debuffs enemy resistance, so they take more damage. Additionally, storm has an actual meaningful damage power-- Lighting Storm, that you get at L38.
Sonic Resonance has a single-target resistance debuff that can be worthwhile in the hands of a single-target damage dealer, and it's the first power in the set-- the one you have to take, sonic siphon. It also has a high-end-cost ally-anchored toggle resistance debuff-- which may be useful if you're teaming, but is ineffective if you're soloing, and can draw a lot of aggro to you when you use it.
Trick Arrow has a couple powers that potentially increase damage-- Acid Arrow and Disruption arrow can both reduce resistace. I've not seen these used, so I'm not a good judge of how effective they'd be in a single-target or area damage controller.
SECONDARIES THAT DO DAMAGE AND SET CONTAINMENT
Working in more containment or damage with one's secondary choice is possible, though not the most obvious way to go about it.
Few powers from the secondaries do any meaningful damage. Lightning Storm, the final power in the Storm set, is one of these few. Trick Arrow has damage in both the Oil Slick and Acid arrows, but I've not seen these in action, so I'm a poor judge of how effective they would be.
Several powers in secondaries can produce disorients or holds.
Radiation has Choking Cloud-- a pulsing PBAoE hold with low unslottable accuracy and short duration (which can be overcome with heavy duration slotting and Radiation Infection), and EMP, a long duration, *huge* PBAoE hold with a long recharge.
Storm Summoning has containment setting potential in Thunderclap (a low magnitude PBAoE disorient-- great for setting containment on nearby minions...). There's also a bit more disorient in the end Storm powers, but I don't gather they're very reliable for setting containment.
Finally, Trick Arrow has a single target hold and a single target immob, which could concievably be good additions for setting containment on a Mind or especially Illusion controller. It also has EMP arrow, a power much like Radiation's EMP; along with some other area containment setters (because it has a long recharge) might be very effective in an area damage controller build.
[Thanks to Zhao_Yun for reminding me to cover damage and containment in secondary sets]
PETS
Pets also do damage. The best damage pets are fire. Illusion has a *lot* of pets, so it also comes in above average for pet damage. The other sets' pets all also do damage. Mind has no pet, and so gets no damage outta it. Mind has heaps of confusion instead, which is a subject complex enough for its own thread.
To reiterate, though, no pets get containment, but all of them are still meaningful additional damage.
POOL ATTACKS
Certain pool powers do damage as well. All are single-target attacks, and are best used on filling out single-target attack chains, on sets that lack sufficient powers for a chain by themselves. Most sets can see a much fuller attack chain with one of these, though Mind and especially Gravity may not need it.
All pool powers get containment damage, though mysteriously, at present, jump-kick does not get quite all that it should.
The main thing to be aware of here is that different pool attacks are often movement precursors. The best-- Air Superiority, is a precursor to flight, and probably is best in a build that you intend to be a flier. Flurry is a precursor to superspeed (though obviously so is hasten). Jumpkick can be a precursor to Superjump. Boxing and Kick are both part of the fighting pool, and so can be regarded as precursors to Tough and Weave-- but beware. These powers, especially Weave, are really tiny contributions to your safety, even when you can't rely on your controls. In the long run, building for three or more Fighting Pool powers is bound to disappoint you.
[Thanks to Traybor for reminding me to remark on pool powers]
I WANNA DO DAMAGE WITH MY CONTROLLER-- FAST ANSWER
Wanna do area damage? Far as I can tell, you'll want a Fire/Rad or Fire/Kinetic. Fire/Storm, Mind/Rad, and Mind/Kin are also worth considering, depending on other priorities.
Wanna do single-target damage? I think you want Gravity/Rad or Grav/Kin. Grav/Sonic, Mind/Rad, Illusion/Rad, Mind/Kin, or Illusion/Kin may also be worth considering.
Choosing a Controller V2 | Splattrollers | Plant/Rad | Fire/Storm | Mind/Emp & Mind/Rad
Weird Controller Powers | Conf & XP/Time | Controller Damage
Being a Healer | The word Necessary | Natural Concept Characters