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

Bunny_Man · 05-07-2007 01:02 AM

Grav/FF controllers are more of a thematic controller build than a power build. It's not a weak combination, but its strengths differ enough from other controller builds that it can be difficult to determine what those strengths are. This guide is I-9 compliant, but a true I-9 guide is going to be a few months of experience in the making.

Gravity Control
Gravity controlling is different from the main elemental three controllers in a few key ways

<ul type="square">[*]Strong, high damage single-target attacks.[*]Few soft controls[*]A ranged mass hold.[*]The immobilization and hold powers are backwards in terms of how they prevent knockback: a gravity hold prevents knockback, the immobilization doesn't; the elemental sets use immobilization to prevent knockback, while holds do not prevent it.[/list]
In general, if you want pets, grab Illusion. If you want lots of AoE soft controls while waiting for your AoE hold to recharge, take Fire, Ice or Earth. If you want pure, difficult-to-resist control, take Mind. If you want to beat the crap out of things while dictating the placement of enemies on the battlefield, take Gravity!

Your Single-Target attacks
You have 4 fairly high-damage (for a controller, mind you!) attacks early in your controlling career. Since the advent of Containment, these become your bread and butter. Depending on your style, you need only take 2 or 3 of the four: the animations and recharge speeds are such that you have a full attack chain with just 3.

Even for the elemental three, I always recommend slotting 3 damage in the single-target immobilization and hold powers; that's the early level damage pump that takes advantage of containment for most controllers. Here you have more than just two powers with which to do damage, and one of them (Propel) does excellent damage.

Two of the powers (Crush and Gravity Distortion) both set up containment. In my build, I use Crush primary as a damage and Containment power, because it's fast and efficient, and high DPS (well, for a controller). Both powers have a 20% accuracy bonus, and you generally won't have a problem with missing. The recharge for Crush is 4 seconds, and 8 for Gravity Distortion. Gravity Distortion does slightly more damage, but you're going to want to drop some damage for hold duration (only needs a couple) and recharge (just one). In general, I find that I just need enough hold duration to spam-hold a boss safely.

Lift and Propel are the attack powers. You probably just need one of them. Of the two, Lift is "cleaner" (figuratively and literally!). Lift has a fast 6-second recharge, does damage on the same scale as Crush and Gravity Distortion, and 1.03-second activation time (very fast!). Too good to be true? Um, yeah: its damage is less than half of that of Crush. It's clean, but weak. Many of you will find Propel to be more attractive, in spite of its issues. The main problem of Propel is the activation time, which City of Data gives as 3.5 seconds. That number seems a bit long to me, and might reflect an older version of the power; it feels a bit faster to me than that, if not by much. It has an 8 second recharge, so in general it fits well in a Crush->GD->Crush->Propel->repeat attack chain. It does more than twice the damage of Lift, about twice the damage of Crush. Its flaws are numerous, though. It will generate a piece of debris that never goes away until the area resets (the debris used to disappear at the end of the attack) which is comical in effect until you're stuck wading through it. Also, it does "melee-unfriendly knockback", but this is usually resolved by using Gravity Distortion (the hold) prior to using Propel. (Remember, Crush won't prevent knockback.)

Your AoE "Soft Controls"
All of the AoE controls come in the later levels. Crushing field is perhaps the least worthwhile of these, though it does set up Containment for an entire area (to be used with a Fireball at epic levels, for example). It has the flaws of the analogous powers in other sets, and it doesn't prevent knockback, so it isn't a cheap way to keep energy blasters from causing havoc with their AoEs. That said, I still have it, because -sometimes- it pays to just keep things in place (and on the ground with -Fly).

Dimension Shift is perhaps the easiest of these later powers to skip. Its flaw is critical for most teamwork, kind of the opposite problem that AoE sleeps have. An AoE sleep is problematic in teams because a fireball will come in right after you sleep a group and wake them right back up again. A Dimension Shift will make all the enemies it affects UNAFFECTED by any attacks for 30 seconds (or longer if you slot for intangibility duration). The reason that this is problematic is that your teammates will go on trying to attack things that they cannot affect. Further, this status effect is so rarely used (by players) that most don't learn how to deal with it well. However, there are reasons to have it, and I do have it in my current build. The main reason to take it is that it is an AoE effect that immediately stops your team from being slaughtered, granting time for a strategic retreat, or time to heal back up. Moreover it will even stop bosses. So it's perfect for stopping that 2nd- or 3rd- aggro situation that your friend's fire imps grabbed. It's very situational, and I believe its base duration is too long, but if you use it when you need it, you'll prevent a lot of debt (while the scrappers whine about not being able to hit anything, taking being alive for granted).

Wormhole is Gravity's shining jewel. It does three amazing things:
<ul type="square">[*]It disorients a group of enemies.[*]It moves them almost anywhere on the map you can see.[*]It does all this through walls! (I.e., no line-of-sight required, though you need to have a target.)[/list]It is possible to impress even longstanding -veterens- of CoX with this power. Just say, "Let me pull," and teleport an entire group of enemies into your tank's taunt aura! The tactical advantages of positioning enemies in this manner is only limited by imagination. Toss them away, or into a corner. Put them onto an Ice Slick, or all next to the Defender's DeBuff aura anchor. Do not skip this power. The Devs had me at "AoE Mag 3 Disorient." The rest is very tasty gravy.

Your AoE hold
Gravity Distortion Field, hereafter known as GDF, is your AoE hold. It's balanced like all the other mass holds for controllers, with two exceptions. It has range, and it prevents knockback for a short while. You will, of course take this power ... and rarely use it.

Your pet
The Singularity is a great pet. It is a natural tank, and rarely dies. Most nothing will melee with it, because it's a natural Repulsion field (all but the most knockback resistant will get thrown back a long ways). You and your team, however, can just walk right through it. So you can put it in a doorway and it will keep the bad guys at a distance. On top of that, it spams Crush, Lift and Gravity Distortion, generally holding and controling anything nearby. Oh, and it flies, so no worrying about its accidentally aggroing all the CoT in the pit as you hop from ledge to ledge. It's perhaps the most party-friendly pet of all the pets (except maybe for the D3's heal-spamming fluffy). You can't heal the Singularity, but Force Fields work just fine on it.

Force Fields
Yes, there was a global defense nerf. However, there was a global fix to how to-hit chances are calculated. What that means is that Force Field is a perfectly viable defense set. The defense values aren't as numerically high as they used to be, but they -are- more effective in common teaming situations. It doesn't matter how purple an enemy is, bubbles will make things miss (the problem remains that very purple purples only need a hit or two). Force Fields are notable for their "big three" powers: the two shields and the big bubble. You can just ignore the rest of the set, if you wish, and dip generously into the Pool Powers.

PFF
The Personal Force Field deserves its own section. This is a travel power. With it you can go just about anywhere. It doesn't provide mez resistance, so you'll want your big bubble going also, but in general, nothing will hit you, and even if you are hit it will do less damage (40% base resistance ... even tankers don't get higher that until Tier 9!). It is NOT instantaneous, and is not a perfect panic button, but if you're on the ball, it will save your tender hiney far more often than you will ever care to admit. You won't be able to affect anything else, but otherwise you can go anywhere, even "taunt" bad guys, and do so with near-total impunity.

The Shields
Deflection Shield and Insulation Shield are how you buff most of the party. It needs a refresh every 4 minutes. You'll see the flashing icon these days, so you don't need a timer like the old days: just keep an eye out, and always faithfully refresh them for your party. This is why you don't need to heal, so just DO it already. I have actually played with /FF trollers who never bubbled anyone. Be professional and do it.

There's some hidden bonuses in these powers, some that would surprise even veteran players. The Deflection Shield gives 11.25% Defense to smashing, lethal and melee. So ALL melee is protected, as ranged bullets and rocks and the like. If there were a melee psionic attack, it would protect against it. Further, it grants 30% resistance to Toxic damage, so even if a Vahz barfs on your teammates, it won't hurt nearly so much. No, you can't buff the Toxic resist.

The Insulation Shield protects against the non-smash/lethal attacks. However it's better than just that. It doesn't specifically defend against psionic attacks, but ... it covers both ranged and AoE attacks ... ! That means once you put up both Shields on a teammate, they've got good defense against EVERYTHING (melee/ranged/AoE covers every attack). Further, it gives resistance to Recovery and Endurance attacks (69.2%). So it protects against sappers and mus and carnies and the like. No, empaths don't protect against that.

Finally, both of these bubbles (and Dispersion Bubble) -stack- their +DEF with most everything else that is brought into play. Double bubblers make a team incredibly resilient (you might not be able to hit those +5s much, or very hard, but well, they'll have the same problem with you!).

Dispersion Bubble
This power is an aura that protects your nearby teammates AND yourself for +7.5% (stacking with shields and any other +DEF bonuses) against ALL attack types. You -will- take this power. On top of that, it protects against Hold, Stun and Immobilize, which leaves out only Sleep as a common mez attack that can get through. Sleep will drop this toggle: identify Sleep-ers and hold 'em ASAP.

This power is also useful for saying "The team is over here, stupid, get your afk butt over here!" because it's a nice distinct aura that doesn't get lost in the spammy graphics of the game.

Force Field miscellany
Force Bolt - this is certainly of use, but in the end, you'll have plenty of knockback and knockdown, not to mention extremely precise enemy-positioning tools. Its primary virtue is that it is fast and will mess up bosses faster than a double-application of Gravity Distortion.

Detention Field - This works just like Dimension Shift from your Gravity Control set, except for being single target. It has a better accuracy, and perhaps you just want to remove one nasty boss while the party cleans up the minions. It is easily skippable, however.

Repulsion Field - This almost seems like a good idea, but you get most of this power for free with your Singularity. The main thing you can't do with the Singularity that you can with this is run through tightly-packed groups of enemies and send them flying all over the place. Ask your tanker and scrapper friends whether you should take this power.

Repulsion Bomb - This power used to suck: it was targetted on an ally, and knocked enemies away from that ally. See, the devs think that knockback and scatter is a -good- thing, because, it like, knocks them all away, see, so they stop hurting you ... Anyway, it's way better now. It mag-2 stuns everything in a 12-foot radius of the ENEMY you target. It also does knockback, but it's a 100% stun chance on all minions. This actually stacks nicely with Wormhole, able to stun a boss for a short while. In PvP, it also has a 19% toggle-drop chance. So it's quite worth taking, but it remains fairly skippable if there's a Pool Power begging your attention at level 35.

Force Bubble - Hmm. This is useful, but I've mostly seen this power abused. It represents some of the faulty thinking the devs have with respect to ranged attacks, knockback, and scatter in general. Used correctly, it can render an entire spawn incapacitated with little effort on your part, simply by pushing everything into a corner. It has a couple of major flaws, even if used correctly: 1) it will aggro everything onto you, eventually, so even if it's just wimpy ranged attacks, it's all aimed at you, and you will faceplant quickly if the aggro isn't properly handled by your team; 2) it pushes everything OUTSIDE the range of your dispersion bubble, so your melee team members have to leave your dispersion bubble defense bonus in order to engage the targets you repel. The ways it can be used badly are as common as all the ways knockback can be misused: it pushes baddies out of the tanks taunt aura, without a corner or a wall it will disperse them far and wide making AoEs useless, and well, tanks and scrappers really don't like chasing down the bad guys (trust me on this).

What Grav/FF Brings to the Team
Overall, grav/ff is a thematic build, and not a juggernaut of synergistic powers. The sets tend to overlap rather than synergize (enemy intangibility in both, strong knockback in both, a general ability to put enemies about where you want them on the battlefield). The sole synergy is between Repulsion Bomb and Wormhole (stackable stuns), and that was a fairly recent addition.

However, the strengths of the two sets add up to allowing you to generally "buff and forget" and be able to focus on controlling the battle in ways that other, "stronger" controllers simply cannot. Illusion and fire pets move things all over, and mind control's Confusion is more of the same, while earth and ice are limited to locking down the battlefield however it lies.

With only 3 must-have powers, Force Field lends itself to a very "loose" build (as opposed to the extremely tight build, of say, a */SR scrapper). Good choices are Leadership (primarily because Maneuvers will stack with your bubbles), Medicine (because without it you cannot heal or rez ... this is a very team-friendly pool to take for FF!), Concealment (making others invisible stacks with your bubbles and prevents unwanted aggro), Teleportation (TP Foe is a single-target Wormhole, almost), and you can easily Recall Friends who have strayed away back into the safety of your bubbles, Speed (Hasten is always useful for recharging the slow powers faster), and of course Fitness (there's no endurance-helping power in these sets, so Stamina is as mandatory here as in most builds).

I'll not cover the Ancillary power pools (Epic power pools) here, as they have been adequately covered elsewhere, and are not unique to grav/FF.

But what about IOs? Isn't this an Issue 9 guide?
Yes, it's an issue 9 guide. But -nobody- knows the art of IOs (especially the rares) well enough to write a useful guide. In general, at level 50, it is possible to buff powers more efficiently with fewer enhancements if those enhancements are IOs: two normal lvl 50 IOs are only slightly weaker than the typical 3 SOs, especially three lvl 50 SOs. So plenty of powers that generally get three-slotted (like Build Up, with three recharges) are pretty much "almost as good" with 2 regular lvl 50 IOs slotted instead. However, this means either respecing into such a build in the late game, or going with only two SOs in those slots for most of the game. Yes, there's nifty always-on powers to be gained by finding/buying the right rare Inventions and slotting them into appropriate powers, but you really won't be dealing with that from levels 1 through 40, which this guide covers. In general, the kewl ones will cost too much, and the bonuses will be too weak for your taste if it's just a level 20 or 30 Invention. I suspect (but I may well be wrong) that IOs will largely be a lvl 40-50 occupation, because only then will the influence and slots be sufficient to play the IO game.

I'm sure we'll learn more as time goes on, and perhaps I'll revisit these remarks later.

Ekibiogami · 05-07-2007 10:40 PM

I agree with everything here for the most part. I would suggest though that crushing field is a big part of my toon (43 grav/ff troller) and my friends (47 grav/psi dom) We both think that with this power which as a short recharge, short animation, large radius that will hit npc baddies quite a distance from your target out the corner of your eye(aoe). I find that ill walk up to a mob and the nastiest of them get grav. dist. single target, then i hit the crushing field and every one is pissed (lets say 3 orange one red and i hit the red first) then i -tab-, GD again, -tab- lift, -tab- propel and then i hit crushing field again, personal force field and let my (bubbled) singularity take over while i heal self or wait for some more end. A bubbled sing is nearly invincible. Then at this point if you didnt use wormhole at the beggining its up, so i drop pff and worm hole the group and you know its gonna hit them. They will be disoriented and you can repeat the process. This also works with bosses. My points is you can really control and keep the mob your fighting where you want them with this power because its always up. I slot crushing field for 3 acc (2 if you have tactics) 1 slow, 1 immob. and 1 reduce endurance (very important it costs 15 end) and enjoy. The containment from this will work wonders for you and your singularity. I found myself pwning bosses with this build on invincible and although its tough to kill in PvP your survival even against several opponents (WB)is much higher that most other squishy or even non squishy sets. The forcefield is great for pvp and i agree with most of what you said. I would say however that force bubble is the bomb in PvP, only ranged can do anything unless they have repel resist (energy aura)I recomment heal self either for pvp or pve, it can be used in your pff to your enemys displeasure.

SilentVengence · 05-10-2007 02:08 PM

Very helpful guide! Thanks!

TacRedline · 09-01-2007 02:35 PM

Grav/FF/Primal! Best Powersets in the Game!

trickysam · 09-02-2007 01:20 AM

A-FREAKIN-GREED!!!!

grav is a nice way to hold...and once held...all your powers do double damage... bubbles are great...

i use my grav/ff as a buffer...then as a controller.

grav trollers actually control more accurately than the other sets.

this is my primary toons build...

-Bubble Pop Electric(pinnacle)

WokkaWokka · 10-16-2007 11:34 AM

thank you for the guide. I saw a friend that had a Grav/emp troller and I fell in love with her playstyle so I made my own grav/ff.

What I did find out though is the objects for propel disappear right after they hit... For the ones where the enemy dies as you cast it they disappear on the way across the room. the days of the sanford and son trash yard are gone.

kukido · 10-20-2007 08:38 AM

[ QUOTE ]
Gravity Distortion does slightly more damage, but you're going to want to drop some damage for hold duration (only needs a couple) and recharge (just one). In general, I find that I just need enough hold duration to spam-hold a boss safely.

[/ QUOTE ]
Yeah, that's one approach. GD does damage but, it's a hold! Solo, the more I can hold, the safer I am. On a team, my damage isn't negligible but there sure ought to be better damage dealers than me. Acc, recharge and hold. Juggling 2 purple bosses and annoying a third with Force Bolt is better (to me) than the orange numbers I can generate with GD.

[ QUOTE ]
Lift and Propel are the attack powers.

[/ QUOTE ]
Your perspective may shuffle around later in the game, especially with IO builds and team buffs. I view Crush as more an attack. Sure, it's a nice immob, but a lead-off Crushing Field sets off containment. Crush cycles quickly especially with a nice damage IO set. It can still be used as an immob, but between spamming it and Grav Dist, not much is going to be moving anywhere. Unless there are so many foes that you're using Crushing field.

The plusses of Propel are that it is way, way cool looking, and it is a guaranteed kill of anything targeted with it in a team setting. No, it's damage is respectable but not enough to guarantee the kill. By the time you've done the controlling you need to, then this power actually activates, that target has been killed by your teammates. Everyone looks about uncomfortably as you fling a forklift into a corpse As mentioned, the Lift that seemed lackluster starts to look better in your eyes as Propel loses its shine. The knockup of Lift is team-friendly damage mitigation too. Oh, I believe having a physics setting other than "none" is what keeps the debris staying. Forever. If it could just die after five or ten seconds, that would be great. Try working the same trick-or-treat door with a team using Propel. Gets old.

That crushing field doesn't prevent knockback *can* be a plus. Baddies still flop on powers like Ice Slick, instead of being held upright and able to attack in other immobs.

For Dimension Shift and/or Detention Field, I'd set up a bind that briefly says what it is doing, so that in the heat of the battle those who might miss or not know what's going on can be informed. Putting the text in local channel has the text color stand out. You will be a royal pain if you use these powers frivolously, making the team stand around wasting time.

Wormhole, it should be noted, has a bouncing ball knockback effect. Practice with it. While it's a great power, pointlessly spreading out a mob that wasn't going to be a real danger and would otherwise have been in control is bad in a team setting. A Crushing Field before or after will stop the stagger-walking.

*blasphemy alert!!!*
I don't like Grav Dist Field. "But it's an AOE Hold!!!!!1" Yeah. But the recharge is long enough that I hesitate in firing it off, wanting to save it as a wipe-preventer. Except a lot of times when an impending wipe is in progress and recognized, it isn't all that impressive. You're fighting tons of reds and higher at that point, and acc and hold duration are limitations. And you really have to six-slot this puppy. In that context, wouldn't Wormhole and/or Dimension Shift be the better investment?

Yes, there are better ways to think of and use GDF, just pointing out that for some playstyles/mindsets, it can seem a bit "meh."

[ QUOTE ]
This is a travel power.

[/ QUOTE ]
No. But it does make travelling safer, along the lines of a character with mez protection being safer travelling with it up.

PFF will let you do some aggro management / alpha strike stunts too. However, on some level the baddies know you are no threat in it, so they will happily move on from you to other teammates who have popped onto their radar screens. PFF is slow-ish to recharge, so you're not going to be popping in and out of nigh-untouchability at will in mid-battle.

On a team that's hesitant about the alpha? You can decide if you want to try and brave it. You can even do this with Singularity in tow. Be aware that "only affecting self" means your dispersion bubble is no longer protecting teammates within it. Or you can open locking everything in place with Crushing Field if you think you can take the initial return fire, then ride out the heat in PFF while the rest of the team gets in there.

As mentioned, Singularity is a steady, reliable companion. Note that he can be slotted for hold and immob duration if you wish. Kind of nice to put a single hold on a boss to find it has stacked with one of Singularity's.

Have to stress Force Bubble's ginormity. The OP's points are valid, though I don't know if I'd say FB would incapacitate a spawn alone just because they're in a corner. It certainly does wreak havoc on them though. Anyhow, point being that you can aggro things off to the side or behind with Force Bubble when you only wanted to push that spawn directly in front of the team.

Like PFF, it takes a bit to recharge, so sometimes you can be stuck with a bad "push" with the mob split. What to do? Err on the side of caution. If you drop the FB, you won't have it back for a bit. If you try zipping around all over to regroup the baddies you can aggro more and make targetting/fighting tough for your teammates. Use judgement, might be best to simply leave the critters where they are if no one is in any real danger.

IOs: You can have all sorts of fun with IOs They're fun to explore as you get the inclination, and neat results can be had in a variety of price ranges. At the very least, you can save some slots. But you can do a lot more too.

ExGemini · 01-29-2008 01:17 PM

May I ask you to post your Character Build please?
You know, powers, slots, sudjested enhancements?

VforVegan · 02-26-2008 11:54 PM

i would be curious to hear a vet grav/ff's view of the recent changes to repulsion bomb.

i am not yet 35 on mine, but it is sounding like it is no longer skippable...

@VforVegan
The Nauseum (50) Kin/Rad/Psy Defender
Terror Storm (50) Ill/Storm/Ice Controller
Burn Bunny (50) Fire/Kin/Fire Controller
Michael Ebonheart (50) Warshade
Incredible Ism (50) Ill/Emp/Primal Controller
((and too many non-50s to list here...))

Major_Force · 09-03-2008 07:19 AM

Grav/FF has been my main since the beginning. I wouldn't say repulsion Bomb is skippable anymore. It isn't great, but it the following does work nicely on large groups:
Wormhole,Crushing Field,Repulsion Bomb,Psionic Tornado... rinse repeat as powers recharge.

BTW... Psy is the best Ancillary choice hands down due to indomitable will. I have mine at perma and set on auto.

One note to the OP: Intangibility enhancements increase magnitude not duration. Dimension Shift is highly situational, but Detention Field can be slotted so it works on AVs/EBs (DS can't). Detention Field can also easily be perma. Permanent lockdown of an AV while you or your team clear everything else is nothing to sneeze at. You only need to run the ITF once with it to realize just how valuable Det Field can really be. I highly recommend it.

205723: A Different DESTINY
When Soldiers of Arachnos got their names added to the Destiny List, Longbow managed to get a copy of the list and began rounding villains up. But one name on the list shocked them...

NinjaSquirrel · 09-25-2008 09:27 AM

Grav/FF is my current main and he solos quite a lot. Nothing much bothers him, not even Romans (on 4th diff).

My slotting is probably different than most.

I slot crush for damage, and GD 2acc, 2dam, 1hold, 1rech which is perfect solo and more than good enough on teams.

Wormhole is 2acc, 2rech, 2range as I find it's range a little too limited for my tastes. The 2rech makes it ready for almost every fight (solo).

If I want to grab just a single target then I do it with tp foe.

My normal tactic is to wormhole (from cover) into a wall, mass immob everyone, place holds on the most annoying targets, and use propel and crush to squeeze the life out of them one by one. If there is someone causing me serious trouble then detention field handles him until I'm done with his buddies.

Most targets go down surprisingly quickly.

In a group I find that my bubbles are really my primary purpose. Wormhole is hard to use on a fast moving team, and detention field is, well, VERY situational.. I simply hold the most dangerous targets, immob the remainder, and let the rest of the team do what they do best...

Oh, and repulsion bomb does NOT benefit from containment *grumbles* though it is a nice backup control power.

NS