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Early access to confuse makes it the second easiest (not necessarily fastest) solo'er from the get go.|
Originally Posted by magicj
It's not really until illusion gets PA that it's solo friendly, and even then when PA is down Illusion is at or near the bottom of troller damage.
But I'm told it's awesome at killing grey minions. |
The ability to easily take out bosses or other such difficult enemies in the early game while they award such large bonuses probably does make it the second fastest too depending on what you choose to face while leveling through the early game. Worst case though is that grav bumps its position.
I'm not sure what your last line refers to. I'll assume it is an inside joke.
This is more to the nature of an aside, but how do the Controller sets stack up for (potential) damage, anyways? I've been vastly enjoying my Plant/Storm, which can send up decidedly satisfying clouds of orange numbers, but my more general 'troller experience is limited- just a Grav/Kin in the mid-thirties, otherwise.
"A soft answer turneth away wrath. Once wrath is looking the other way, shoot it in the head." Seven Habits of Highly Effective Pirates
MA Arcs: #12285, "Small Fears", #106553, "Trollbane", #12669, "How to Survive a Robot Uprising"
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I suppose it depends on ones definition of "solo friendly". Any set with a sleep can make it so the troller can just stand there and eventually kill things. But when it comes to actually killing things, Illusion without PA is at the bottom of the list.|
Originally Posted by Frosticus
Early access to confuse makes it the second easiest (not necessarily fastest) solo'er from the get go.
The ability to easily take out bosses or other such difficult enemies in the early game while they award such large bonuses probably does make it the second fastest too depending on what you choose to face while leveling through the early game. Worst case though is that grav bumps its position. I'm not sure what your last line refers to. I'll assume it is an inside joke. |
The comment about bosses was interesting. Are folks really having difficulty killing bosses? Because I've heard others make this comment, but never had any difficulty with a boss with any of the troller primaries unless they somehow get the drop on me, or if there's more than one boss.
That combo is just seriously sick, and is a perversion of gameplay mechanics. - Excelsio
The Infernal Challenge
Building a WarTroller
Troller Damage
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Of note is that we were specifically talking about early game. A red con boss will tear most trollers a new one pre-DO's, or at least has the potential to do it with a single miss. The extra duration of confuse makes mezzing bigger and badder enemies earlier in the game much easier.|
Originally Posted by magicj
I suppose it depends on ones definition of "solo friendly". Any set with a sleep can make it so the troller can just stand there and eventually kill things. But when it comes to actually killing things, Illusion without PA is at the bottom of the list.
The comment about bosses was interesting. Are folks really having difficulty killing bosses? Because I've heard others make this comment, but never had any difficulty with a boss with any of the troller primaries unless they somehow get the drop on me, or if there's more than one boss. |
I know that in terms of direct damage without PA Illusion is not particularly fast in the least. But without PA doesn't mean without two confuses Luts helping you take stuff down.
As of lvl 8 though plant just skyrockets ahead of everything by setting it to like -1/x5
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With the exceptions of Ice and Earth, your average run of mill troller will do decent single target damage if you take your single target powers and slot them for damage. Fire, and to a lesser extent, Plant do decent AoE damage. Mind and Plant can use their AoE confuses to have larger groups kill themselves quickly.|
Originally Posted by TeChameleon
This is more to the nature of an aside, but how do the Controller sets stack up for (potential) damage, anyways? I've been vastly enjoying my Plant/Storm, which can send up decidedly satisfying clouds of orange numbers, but my more general 'troller experience is limited- just a Grav/Kin in the mid-thirties, otherwise.
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Edit:
Earth gets pretty good at single target damage once it gets stoney. And as I mentioned earlier, Illusion really needs PA up to be considered to have decent damage.
That combo is just seriously sick, and is a perversion of gameplay mechanics. - Excelsio
The Infernal Challenge
Building a WarTroller
Troller Damage
A controller Immobilise or hold with Containment, does equivalent damage to a Defender Tier 2 Blast, assuming you're slotting your holds for damage.
So the baseline for a Controller is like a Defender with two Tier 2 Blasts.
Propel does twice that (but slowly), Spectral Wounds and Levitate(Mind) are close to Tier 3 blasts.
Lift(gravity) is like a Tier 1 Blast roughly.
So a lot of Controllers have decent-ish single target chains.
Controllers really don't get a alot of AoE damage though, which is king of the PVE game at its most basic (eg radio missions), whereas all Defenders get a couple of decent Tier 1 Blast-damage level AoEs.
I'd say Controllers are generally 'better' for a team than Defenders. I'm levelling up my Defender now and I can safely say that the extra damage I bring from having a Blast secondary is mediocre compared to what the real DPS classes bring. A Blaster so far embarasses me in damage that it feels almost meaningless with my contribution in that element.
A Controller however does not feel 'meaningless' in their debuffs when stacked against a Defender. It is however the same case as Defender/Blaster comparisons - the same set, but one as primary and another as secondary. Instead the Defender is slightly better but rather underwhelmingly so. Even if the Defender was significantly better (I know that's not a quantitative term!), multiple Controllers would still nullify this advantage because of how close both can bring situations to their cap in defence/debuff/etc.
I do like the idea of having Vigilance as being a toggle between damage and endurance modification. Toggle for damage when things are good and endurance when things are grim. Unfortunately a flat % is going to need to be pretty significant because of how low the base damage is on a Defender.
This isn't at all to say Defenders are bad. They are a great addition to a team. They certainly add a LOT more than scrappers or additional tanks. But their realm in which they are purported to be best at is nearly eclipsed by others.
I think the biggest problem with Controllers and Defenders is that they are mis-named. If Controller had been called Defender, and if Defender had been called Watchman or Sentry, then people wouldn't get their expectations mixed up.
If you want to blast and buff/debuff, play a Defender (or a Corruptor). If you want to Control and buff/debuff, play a Controller. If you find locking down everything and buffing everyone to be more satisfying than blasting and buffing, then the controller is more your AT.
I personally love what Defenders do, and when I want to Blast and Buff/Debuff, I play my Defenders. I find the damage to be generally greater, and definitely the damage is more flexible. Defenders are a lot of fun, if that is your style of fun.
Lewis
Random AT Generation!
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I'll agree that if you slot for damage instead of control, various controllers can do good single target damage. I don't consider having 2-3 single target attacks to be really great damage overall and if that's the goal, then a Scrapper will just have an easier time doing that. Well, that and I still feel the point of a controller is to primarily control. |
Originally Posted by Frosticus
It's not just fire/kins or an elite few builds. It's any controller that slots for damage. Well at least when it comes to single target damage.
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I still feel Kinetics and -regen debuffing are what gives certain controllers a big damage advanatge to the rest of the controllers and vs other ATs. Though I much prefer the variety of power overlap and capability overlap in CoH.
If controllers could only control (and do crap damage), tankers only tank (and do crap damage), defenders only buff/debuff (and do crap damage), scrappers/blaster only do damage (and have no mitigation/mez/soft control), I think I'd be a much poorer game for it.
I'm willing to have the ATs step on each others toes in order to have the variety of playstyle options.
@SBeaudway on Pinnacle, TaskForce Titans Supergroup.
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The nice thing about IOs is that you can easily and cheaply do both. I recently did a bit of frankenslotting with level 30 IOs on my Controller so my single target controls have about 90% damage enhancement and about 44% enhancement to recharge, accuracy, endurance and control. It was pretty cheap as well, I bought the recipes for <10K each although I did overpay for the salvage due to laziness.
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Originally Posted by SBeaudway
I'll agree that if you slot for damage instead of control, various controllers can do good single target damage.
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If we were talking about random occurrences, like drawing socks from a drawer in the dark, you could fault me for making an example of the single black sock in the drawer full of white socks.|
Originally Posted by SBeaudway
But you can't compare all defenders to one outlier controller for damage.
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But which controller set combination people play is not a random occurrence. The lights are on, so to speak, and an unusually large and clearly non-random number of people are drawing the black sock.
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Of course a scrapper will have an easier time, this is a controller vs defender discussion isn't it? My comment was specific to the fact that if any controller slots for damage they will be able to do roughly the same dps as a defender before pets are accounted for.|
Originally Posted by SBeaudway
I'll agree that if you slot for damage instead of control, various controllers can do good single target damage. I don't consider having 2-3 single target attacks to be really great damage overall and if that's the goal, then a Scrapper will just have an easier time doing that. Well, that and I still feel the point of a controller is to primarily control.
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So relative to a defender which is what this topic is about; a controller either gets their damage for very little cost or they get their control for very little cost.
Additionally, a controller doesn't have to sacrifice control to do damage because of several factors with varying availability.
1. control is binary. If my hold lasts 40 sec or 15 sec doesn't matter if they target is held the entire time I attack it.
2. IO's and HO's all for both control and damage to be highly enhanced.
I strongly recommend that any controller tries out slotting their st controls as attacks that happen to do a great job of mezzing rather than mezzes that happen to do decent damage. You'll likely find (for most combos) that life actually gets easier for the toon.
I suppose I just never considered playing a controller as a single target attack chain machine, no matter how good it might be. I am too busy in a fight spreading controls around and using my secondary to chain attacks vs one target until it's dead.
The problem is, if you dump containment or lower the damage component on the mezes, then a controller isn't going to solo anything. Even with those some controllers are far less than steller in that regard.
I'd like to see a buff to defenders that is not damage (as the last buff when solo/small teams seems to be good) but amplifies their support role and differentiates it more from a controller and makes it a bit more compelling/ It'd be more interesting. I have no ideas though...
@SBeaudway on Pinnacle, TaskForce Titans Supergroup.
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People always pick the black sock that's FOTM. It doesn't mean all the socks are FOTM. |
Originally Posted by Rigel_Kent
If we were talking about random occurrences, like drawing socks from a drawer in the dark, you could fault me for making an example of the single black sock in the drawer full of white socks.
But which controller set combination people play is not a random occurrence. The lights are on, so to speak, and an unusually large and clearly non-random number of people are drawing the black sock. |
There is one controller that is the obvious outlier for AOE farms and has been for many years. Until there is a change to Kinetics, I don't see that changing.
@SBeaudway on Pinnacle, TaskForce Titans Supergroup.
I am not opposed to some sort of buff for Defenders, preferably something to make them more unique. But you can't compare all defenders to one outlier controller for damage. You might was well suggest that no one should play any controller other an a fire/kin since it's clearly superior.