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Well that depends on what you want to do and which FF powers you want to take.|
Originally Posted by Celestial_Lord
What would be the "best" Controller primary to pair with the Force Field secondary?
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Speaking in a min/maxing sort of manner, I would think Fire, since it has a power which lowers your foes' accuracy, which makes your forcefields even more valuable.
Mind is another good choice, since FF has several positioning/KB tools that won't ruin any of your other mitigation effects (such as persistent Knockdown, area effects, or immobs). Though if for some reason you only plan on taking the defense shields and none of the attacks/kb powers, you can probably play any primary.
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There really isn't one although it depends on what you intend to do with the set.
I have a Mind/FF, currently at 39. I have been pretty happy with the combo even though I mostly solo the character. Mind really demands very little from the secondary because it provides so much single target and AoE control. And since many of the FF powers are optional, it allows me to take all of the Mind primary powers. Solo, it isn't fast but it works. And then any team is happy to see me when I can throw out the two ally bubbles.
Other sets have a pet to draw aggro, so often the pet will draw the mez. Mind doesn't have a pet, so the mez protection from the big bubble really helps. One of my favorite suprises . . . PFF makes this the best character for leading out hostages of any of my controllers. Getting Nukes in Warburg is a piece of cake.
I haven't tried other primaries paired with FF, but I have played all the other primaries. I can't think of any other primary I would like with FF better than Mind.
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Fire or ice I would say. Dispersion bubble will prevent all mezzes except sleeps which will allow you to keep Hot Feet and Artic Air (respectively) on.
Fire and Ice primaries are also more melee oriented and the extra defense from the bubbles makes staying in melee much safer to do.
The 2 things I would recomend against pairing with FF are Ill/ and Grav/.
Ill/FF is a huge end hog. I deleted mine once I found that 4 slotting stamina with 3 common level 50 End Mod IOs and the Performance Shifter proc. 4 slotting health with Numina +/+, Numina Heal, Miracle +. Miracle heal. Having the Atlas Medallion and Portal Jockey accolades, AND slotting the equivalent of 2 end red SOs (or more) in every power still was not enough recovery to have a smooth attack chain for more than 3 itterations.
Grav/FF is the combination that when poorly played can seriously greif your own team. I was once on an ITF with a grav/FF that thought he was hot stuff but he was responsible for repeated team wipes. He managed to make what should have been a 45 minute task force into a 3 hour fiasco.
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I have two Force Field controllers, one plant/ff and the other fire/ff. I favored the damage heavy control primaries because Force Fields offer little to supplement or enhance your damage. Of the two, I think Fire gained more from it's pairing with Force Field than Plant did. The imps became much more robust with a helping of the shields, and Smoke plays well with the your defense by lowering the enemies tohit. Plant didn't gain as much from having the added defense, but then again, it really didn't need it.
Really, FF can pair fairly well with any controller primary for two reasons: it offers you mez protection and it only requires 3 powers to fulfill most of what a team will want from you.
For me the answer has been Ice and Illusion.
I've taken Earth/FF, Fire/FF and Ice/FF to level 50. I've taken Illusion/FF to 39. I've teamed with a friend who has taken Illusion/FF to level 48 or so.
Anyway, Illusion/FF is a great combo, simply because Illusion is awesome and mez protection is awesome and the sets look like they belong together, especially if you take the primal epic as my friend did.
Ice/FF is really nice because you will have mez protection for Arctic Air, and you can soft cap yourself to ranged, AOE, and smashing/lethal. I love being able to tank and keep guys hosed up due to Arctic Air.
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Actually, after thinking about it some more last night, I came to the same conclusion. I think I'll hold off until Going Rogue and make an Electric / FF Controller.
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Originally Posted by Airhammer
ELECTRIC.... oh wait...
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My fire/FF bubbler is really fun but the big problem with it is that all the toggle takes A LOT of end and fire/ is also end heavy so you really need to invest a lot into +recov to make it playable without poping blues all the time.
You can also take the fire version of power sink ( I can't remember the name) which will help but you need to have people around you to get enough end back.
My /FF troller is Gravity. Mostly because I'm now at the point in my CoX career that I ask "what would happen if I loaded up on cage and intangibility powers?" and make such a char to find out.
The combo gives a lot of tools to knock things down and around. I dunno, I'm by no means saying it's my answer for "Best Primary for FF" but it fits thematically and can work.
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Fire/FF in PvE is great had plans for a tankmage build but never did it(softcap, aggro aura, provoke-). Grav/FF is nice
Thats the two that have stood out to me from what i have seen.
I've played Illusion/FF up to about 30 before I finally decided it wasn't going anywhere. There's just very little synergy between the two sets at all, and I couldn't help thinking I was gimping the potential of each set. Not that it's bad per se, I was able to join teams and feel like I was making a significant contribution, it was just that I kept thinking how much MORE awesome I would be if I had a different primary or secondary.
If I were to make another /FF controller, I would most likely be leaning towards Fire, but that's a completely uninformed opinion and I've never actually tried the combo.
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The combination of Illusion and FF was the definition of boring for me (deleted him at lvl 48), but the experience may differ from person to person
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Illusion, Gravity or Mind Control.
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If think Grav/FF is one of those sets where you either play it really well or you play it really poorly. Gravity Control seems to me to be built to leverage the knockback and positioning that Force Fields offer since it's one of the few sets where the immobilize powers don't block such, and the two complement each other in others ways, too (Want a strategy based around Caging? You have both a single target and an AoE to use as is necessary). The question that comes up, then, is whether the exceptional effort necessary to play it well provides a corresponding exceptional result.
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Originally Posted by Miladys_Knight
Grav/FF is the combination that when poorly played can seriously greif your own team. I was once on an ITF with a grav/FF that thought he was hot stuff but he was responsible for repeated team wipes. He managed to make what should have been a 45 minute task force into a 3 hour fiasco.
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Personally, I have to start by asking why does it have to be a controller. IMO FF is much stronger on defenders with the big point being that with blasting as a secondary, you constantly have something to do while you wait for 4 minutes to re-shield the team.
With controllers, who have lower valued shields to begin with, which team-wise is still ok for the most part because you're also bringing controls to the situation. But most of a controller's powers are long recharge, one time per battle use powers. Leaving a single target hold, maybe a single target attack power and maybe a debuff etc. So after you bub, and then use a control, for the most part you aren't doing much and will be very bored.
As far as synergy goes, fire/ff, ill/ff and plant/ff would be my top picks. Fire/ff for the mix of added damage and buffs.
The Ill/ff, you can stack group invis with the buffs, the set gets a good DPA attack and the single target confuse gives you something to do during battles, and as illusions is very much a ranged playset, as is force fields for the most part, it does work well. "end hog" i've never found a need for superior invis, illusion works best with fly to position phantasm, so I'm always hasten/ss/hover for travel, so SS, and group invis, gives stealth when you need it and full invis. Nemesis snipers are so rare it is not really much of an issue to need superior invis, especially when you have pff with force fields.
As to the plant/ff, my first reason would be the niche of providing good defense, and having spirit tree to regenerate the damge that IS taken. Its a nice fun thing to do personally. Plus plant has very good controls as well, and dispersion bubble to give the carrion creepers defense.
But in general, as mentioned i'd as why the FF has to be a controller, its much better and more fun on a defender IMO. Personally love my FF/Psy combo, lots of attacks, decent aoe, and very good build with force bubble to IO out for capped ranged defense to mix with your long range psy powers .
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Just a few things in response to Wind's post.
Defenders do have better shields, but an Ill/FF/Primal with Group Invisibility and Maneuvers can easily keep a team soft-capped with power boosted shields. It's simply a matter of shielding teammates in phases while Power Boost is active. At that point, you become just as effective as a FF defender since defense beyond the soft cap is rarely an issue.
As for the on the inactive nature of control coupled with FF, I'll have to disagree. After you hit your AoE control, focus shifts to individual controls to layer on bosses and clear up mobs that the AoE misses. Also, if you're shielding the team in phases, you'll break the tedium of "shield now" and "control now". When you toss some damage from your epics into the mix, there should always be something to contribute to the team. I think this is especially true of Illusion with its built-in blast.
Really, the biggest contributor to making shields boring is what I've already hinted at twice: the re-shield every 4 minute mentality. If you break out of that, then you can take a much more active role on teams.
If Whisper Witch was around, she'd tell you Fire or Mind. And I'd agree with you.
Mind has all the tools a controller needs, and could be effective without a secondary.
For Fire, sit in PFF, gather a huge group of enemies an flame them in Hotfeet.
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Originally Posted by ketch
Just a few things in response to Wind's post.
Defenders do have better shields, but an Ill/FF/Primal with Group Invisibility and Maneuvers can easily keep a team soft-capped with power boosted shields. It's simply a matter of shielding teammates in phases while Power Boost is active. At that point, you become just as effective as a FF defender since defense beyond the soft cap is rarely an issue. As for the on the inactive nature of control coupled with FF, I'll have to disagree. After you hit your AoE control, focus shifts to individual controls to layer on bosses and clear up mobs that the AoE misses. Also, if you're shielding the team in phases, you'll break the tedium of "shield now" and "control now". When you toss some damage from your epics into the mix, there should always be something to contribute to the team. I think this is especially true of Illusion with its built-in blast. Really, the biggest contributor to making shields boring is what I've already hinted at twice: the re-shield every 4 minute mentality. If you break out of that, then you can take a much more active role on teams. |
"easily" I would not go to say by any means. They can do it but you're forced to go primal forces, and have to be illusion, kinda limiting there if he chooses another primary. Any defender can do it with just picking up manuevers. And ST controlling, decieve is fun to use, but for the most part you shouldn't be needing to micro manage your controls so much.
On teams on my defender, I usually don't fully bub the team constantly, certainly not making them hold up so I can do so. It depends a lot on the team. Generally there are only the tank, and a scrap or blaster or two that seem to need to be shielded. With it being easy to cap on a defender its often times easy to use depending on the enemies you're fighting the ally shields retro-actively as well. If you look at it through the situation as a slight pre-emptive heal, it makes it much easier, takes skill and practice but eliminates the "4 minutes and wait" stigma. However its still good, like before fighting an AV etc to do so at times, and can be done all at once, especially when starting a mission, unlike the ill/ff who would have to wait for PB to cycle to do so.
That's one thing I like about the FF/Psy, is that outside of buffing, the -recharge of psy scream and psionic tornado and the knockdown/up of psy tornado and repulsion bomb are good soft controls/debuffs for the team as well to prevent the need for using some bubbles so much as well. Using them retro-actively, if something is attacking a squishy blaster etc, just telekinetic thrust them, and then shield the ally. There are other tricks for other power sets, and also always repulsion field too, but just stating that there are always more tactics able to be used to alter the playstyle as such.
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Probably the reason to go controller over defender is because you have more fun controlling than blasting. I know I do, and the 1 or 2 epic attacks are enough for me when I feel like zapping something. That's another reason to go with Illusion, Mind or Gravity ... you get to have some powers that feel like blasts from the get-go if you really want, and yet you are still a controller with all of the fun that entails.
Assuming the OP prefers to control instead of blast, he'd probably post it in this forum ....
Lewis
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This doesn't sound right. IIRC you get the status "Affecting Self Only" or something along those lines, and you are unable to do any damage or healing to anyone but yourself...
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Originally Posted by Weatherby Goode
For Fire, sit in PFF, gather a huge group of enemies an flame them in Hotfeet.
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Note that I didn't say any FF controller can easily do it. I stated that an Ill/FF/Primal can easily do it. Yes, you're wrangled into a few specific powers (picking up a very useful power pool, which is further enhanced by Power Boost), but you can softcap your team. With only SO's you can reach 46.41% defense. With IO's your defensive values sit around 48.64% (you can peak 50% if you PB Group Invisibility as well). Now, if you want to raise the issue of other primaries doing it as well, simply substitute Group Invisibility with Grant Invisibility. |
Originally Posted by Windenergy21
"easily" I would not go to say by any means. They can do it but you're forced to go primal forces, and have to be illusion, kinda limiting there if he chooses another primary. Any defender can do it with just picking up manuevers. And ST controlling, decieve is fun to use, but for the most part you shouldn't be needing to micro manage your controls so much.
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So, assuming we're sitting at the soft cap, let's ask the question again: why a controller? Cascading Defense Failure. Cimerorans are a big offender, as are Council gunners. When that blaster, drunken on defenses, heads into a mob of Council soldiers the controller can put them on ice (or earth or fire or whatever) before they shred through his defenses.
Then there's the point the Lewis raises. Controlling is fun.
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I meant, go gather in complete safety, then drop PFF and flame them.
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Originally Posted by Stratos
This doesn't sound right. IIRC you get the status "Affecting Self Only" or something along those lines, and you are unable to do any damage or healing to anyone but yourself...
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What would be the "best" Controller primary to pair with the Force Field secondary?
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