Can it be controlled? A controller's "Little Black Book" of AV's
By
Elimist,
Posted on: 2010-10-17 24:59 in Controllers
The end game AV's
Imperious Task Force ----------Romulus Augustus, Nictus version: I used AE to test it. I'll try again in the real task force at a later date, but here's what I got so far. It seems he has an energy shield, which gives him 3% Status effect protection to Holds, Immob, Stun, Sleep, Knockback, and Repel. It doesn't protect from fear or confuse. 3% ain't much. So for my mind dom, which at the moment has 168% recharge, I went with the confuse, and attacked him where he was (slightly) weakest, and I'm strongest. Using powerboost, and permadom, I managed to stack 120 mags of confuses on him. It dropped to 117 and went up to 123, but it pretty much hovered around 120. When the purple triangles come up, he has 53% protection from his bonuses. Triangles+Energy Shield=53%-(my mags120)= -67 mags of confuse protection. Needless to say he proceeded to wipe out his mob a well before I was finished. I did this fighting him at level 50.
Verdict: Level 50 AV with no protection except triangles VS Mind dom with 168%global recharge, missing his last two purple sets The Winner is: Mind Dom, hands down
I tried it before this at level 54. I don't have the exact numbers because I did this at 4 in the morning, and I'm too braindead to remember to record the stats. The poweranalyzer showed that his effect resistance and protection were still the same. But my confuses were still reduced. Whatever is doing this is not showing up on a power analyzer, but it has measurable effect. I forget the exact numbers, but I believe I managed to stack just enough confuses to drop his confuse protection to below 0. -6 if i remember correctly. This is effectively the same as stacking two confuses on him. For an AV, that doesn't cut it. Bosses take mag 6. EB's I believe are mag 9 if remember correctly, I'll include this information later. An AV I'm not sure on yet, if anyone has this info, I still need that. But it's more than 6.
Round 2: Level 54 AV with only purple triangles VS Mind dom 168rech The Winner: Rommie made me bite the curb. But my dom doesn't have as much recharge as his mids build shows, and certainly not all the recharge that's possible. Rematch imminent.
I'll make a note here. I believe it was the level 54 that I attempted to sleep. I hit him with my single target sleep (which you can't stack, because it does damage). Because of his energy shield, he was protected from my mag 3 sleep. Son of a--- Rommie slashes you for 437.32 points of lethal damage and reduces your defense!
Rommie slashes you with his Gladius for 437.32 points of negative energy damage!You are no longer flying.
If you're going to attempt to sleep Rommie, keep in mind his shield does protect from your sleep, just enough to put him back at 0. Your AoE sleep does no damage, so it will stack on top of the single target. Now, at this point, I'm not sure if the AV being level 54 will make it necessary to stack another. I don't believe so. If I remember correctly, the Hero's in LRSF are 54. I can mez them with my AoE in one hit. Why would you want to sleep Rommie? I dunno. But if there is an AV that'd be handy to sleep, maybe in an AE arc, or wherever, and he keeps resisting it and killing you, try this: Hit him with a power analyzer (imagine that, wonder how many fails you might have been able to pull off if you had one of those "useless" temp powers). Check out his sleep protection. If he's got an energy shield, like Rommie, you may not be able to do it if you have only one sleep that also does damage. See? My research on Rommie has a bearing on any AV with that power.
I don't remember off the top of my head if standard ITF Rommie is level 54 or 50. I'll check this out next time I ITF and update the guide. I'll work on this when I solo an ITF with my Dom and I'll let you know how it goes.
NON CONTROL RELATED STATS: Rommie's Energy shield gives him 15% defense to all typed damages except psi. No m/r/aoe, so psi is not checked. Your psi blaster is good to go, even if it weren't for the fact that all toons with decent sets have plenty of accuracy to make 15% defense worthless. What Energy Shield does do though is give Rommie a a 51% defense debuff resistance. This caps him at 100% on top of the AV resist of 85%. But fortunately, his defense sucks in the first place.
Oddly enough, Rommie has 39,149,120 XP until next level. On seeing this, I popped my self rez to check something, and learned that no, my death did not change this number. Apparently I con Gray to Rommie. 
As of now I'll just stick this here, and edit it another time: AV's that I've been told have psi defense/resist. GW P30, Jade Spider P25, Recluse P20, Black Scorp P15 Regent Korol P50
The Task Force Commander AV's
The Praetorians
Misc. AV's. I.E. Moonfire/Hess/Katie
The Shard
Regular Mission Arcs. These AV's are not in any task forces. Look them up on http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Category:Archvillains if you want to know where to find them
Okay, the categories are set. I'll be filling it in as I go. Here's the strategy behind compiling the guide: Use a power analyzer and gather the stats on the AV's. If anyone wants to help with this, feel free to help out. Just private message me the info. Include all the other stats along with it if you like, and I will include that as well, for the other AT's and such. The controls are my main focus, but the rest is good to have in one easy to reference guide
I'll also be using actual tests of the powers to see if the theories and stats hold water.
- Troller/Dom Tools: How to get the most from your mez
Finding yourself a little short? There are a few things you can do to get the most out of your mez and bend that AV to your will.
1) Dominate. Nuff said..... or is it? Beyond just adding domination to your controls, it also adds to procs. So for instance, if you have the full purple set in your single target confuse, you get a chance to add (I forget the number) a mag to your confuse on the target if it hits. I thought of putting it in the AoE to hit over the aggro cap, but it's only 10 seconds, and I'd be hitting alot of the enemies that are already confused. I crunched the numbers, and mostly it would be wasted on enemies that are always going to get hit by the alpha confuse. If you put it in the single target, the proc will cycle much more often, which means it will hit more often, and will also be increased by your dominate. Also, in an AoE, you have to take into account that the long recharge will make the confuse on those enemies that are only hit by the proc almost redundant, because they are confused for all of 10 seconds and then go back to normal. Good for a few seconds of control, but otherwise, not worth it. In the single target, it gets the most use because it will stack on the enemy you really need confused, like the AV.
Another note on
2) Procs. See #1.
3) Stacking with other controls. Check out the other controllers on the team, and work with them. There are 3 troller sets that can stack sleeps together. Earth, Plant, and Mind. Other sets have sleeps as well, but single target sleeps cause damage. They can keep an enemy slept, but they will not stack, because the timer will reset when they damage the enemy. If you need to stack sleep, use the AoE sleeps.
Update: You can stack sleeps with a single target sleep. But only once. If you start with a single target sleep, and follow it with a non-damaging sleep, it will stack. *Credit for this information goes to @Hijacked and @Dr Gemini and the channel Triumph Watch 2.0
4) Frenzy. A dom's best friend. Before you go to grab that AV, use your frenzy, from the Going Rogue expansion, and fill your dom bar. Doesn't help your holds themselves, but gets you ready to dominate, which definitely does.
5) Vanguard/Megalomaniac. http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Megalomaniac_Badge This will further increase your hold. It applies to the base stats of a power, so factor that in if you're doing your number crunching. The number I believe is 66% to your base status effects for 60 seconds. If you are on a PUG group that simply can't kill Rommie and you need him to kill his own nictus, you can save the day with this thing. Pop your [Frenzy], and start confusing. I got all the recharge I could out of my toon, and I got my duration up to 90 seconds on my confuse with permadom. So my suggestion, be patient. Stack your confuse for those 90 seconds. Once you've got that done, hit your Van/Megalo and continue. If you're counting on holds, do the opposite. Holds aggro, obviously, so you need him held as soon as possible. Hit it at the beginning and pray he's held soon.
6) Power Boost. I personally don't have this in my build, but I'm seriously going to look into it. If you took fire epic, you can get 26.25 more recharge ...... oh wait. Lol, I'm going to refrain from using backspace just for the lolz. That just illustrates the point even better, it's not in the epic, it's in the energy secondary. So yeah, you can take the fire epic and fit 26.5% more recharge, and if you are still deciding on what toon to roll at the time you're reading this guide, I highly recommend energy as a secondary. Animation times are a bit long, but the single target damage is great, and you get this little jewel in a dominator's arsenal. Power boost increases your status effect powers for a short time (15 seconds if I'm not mistaken). With the sick recharge my build has, it recharges in 30 seconds. So it's up half the time. So out of the 90 seconds I give for my example of how long confuse duration is for my dom, you can be powerboosted for 60 seconds of that, which actually increases the 90 seconds in the first place. Too many exponents and carrying the 2's for me to figure how it actually affects it, but it's amazing. Especially if you pop Megalo as well (see #5)
You're right Nal. I knew this, but maybe the wording is a little off. I'll change it.
This guide will be evolving a bit, as there are some things I've learned in my research. I more properly understand the purple triangles of an AV, and the fact that it's standard across the board. I will still check all the AV's, but I will be looking more specifically for inherent mez protections, as well as defense. I'll also be including more information on the purple triangles, and the way it works on AV's. The format will look something like this:
(Name of AV) - Standard AV protection
- Mez protection 5
- Mez resist 20%
- 20% Defense to range damage
- 10% Defense to Psi
This will still give a good idea as to whether you will be able to do anything against him, and/or why your AV confusing Dom isn't working on this AV. Because it has extra mez protection/resist, as well as defense to the two powers that are checking his defense. (I could be wrong about the range, I've heard mind doms for instance only check psi, I'll have to look into this). I'll try to include enough info for general trollers, but since mental/illusion trollers are my favorites, I'm biased to them.
A complete section could be written on procs, as there are so many options between the number of procs, the number of powers that can use them and different playstyles.
Just as a start: The Lockdown +2 Mag proc. To understand the use of this, you have to first understand Mag and how it works. The proc gives you a 20% chance to add two to the mag of your hold. So first, the hold has to hit, and second, the foe hit needs a higher mag than the mag of the hold you use or the proc is accomplishing nothing. Most single target holds have a 20% chance for an extra 1 Mag for a shorter time than the main hold, and that is usually sufficient to hold a boss. Therefore, the +2 Mag proc really only provides any benefit on a higher level foe (boss) who is not hit by the "overpower" chance but IS hit by the proc. In other words, not very often -- it almost doubles your chance of holding a Boss on one shot, however. If you mainly use your single target control on Bosses, it will provide a nice benefit. It looks like it is doing more than it is because the tesla cage animation shows up whenever it hits, even if it hits on a minion or lieutenant who would have been held anyway.
Yes, it can be used to stack mag on an AV or EB, but it is unreliable due to the random nature. Also, this proc is wonderful in Choking Cloud, which has a high chance of a either a Mag 1 or Mag 2 hold, but a lower chance of a Mag 3. The odds are pretty good that when the proc hits, it will add two mag to allow Choking Cloud to hold something that otherwise would not have been held.
Pretty much the same analysis happens with the Devastation Chance for Hold, except its chance to hit is lower -- 15%.
LOCAL MAN! The most famous hero of all. There are more newspaper stories about me than anyone else. "Local Man wins Medal of Honor." "Local Man opens Animal Shelter." "Local Man Charged with..." (Um, forget about that one.)
Guide Links: Earth/Rad Guide, Illusion/Rad Guide, Electric Control
Yeah. Overall, being able to stack is way more important than what your procs will do for you.
But anyway, just came down with my third case of infected tonsils/swollen lymph nodes this year. Find out whether or not I get them yanked on Friday. Won't see me around much, and this post will stagnate for a bit.
I've pestered and spammed the forums in my own pursuit of mastering the game (I'm not even close yet) and I figured it's my turn to give something back. This will be my first contribution. It is a work in progress, and any feedback from the community is welcome. Private messages are preferred if you want to contribute.
- The Writer's Intent
The purpose of this guide is to provide information for controllers on how to lock down an AV. Obviously, it's in the title. This isn't a question of tactics, I.E. What's the point of trying to confuse Hopkins, an emp can solo that weakling? It's just a list of the AV's in the game, and their resistance to confuse/hold/sleep etc.I'll start with how to crunch the numbers (which is easy) and find out what kind of mags you can stack up on any given enemy. So without further preamble, here's the guide.
- How many mag's are in your utility belt?
Here's how to figure it out. Simple, but I figure I'll include it. Take a look at your mids build. Let's say your recharge is X, and your activation time is Y. Z is the duration of your hold/confuse/sleep etc. M is the mag of your control. Z divided by (X+Y) = The number of times you can stack that control onto your target. We'll call this C. C x M = The mags of control that you've just stacked onto that enemy. There are formulas for how mez resists and so on will reduce your duration and chance to hit and so forth, but you'll have to check that on your own. The guides are there, I'm just giving you some information to start with.I'll use my mind dom as an example. With permadom, my single target confuse lasts for roughly 90 seconds. The recharge on the same power is 2 seconds, and the activation time is 2 seconds. So 90/(2+2)=22. Numbers are rounded. So, I can hit that sucker 22 times with my confuse. 22x3=66 mags of control. That AV will have to be able to resist/reduce 66 mags of control to keep that thick skull of his closed to me.
Now, I know where my toon sits as far as how many mags he can stack? Now what do I do with that? I've found a surprising lack of information on individual AV's and what they can resist. So, that leads me to the meat and potatoes of my guide.
- The Meat and Potatoes: What's included in this guide?
This is a work in progress, so bear with me, as the AV's will be added as I investigate with my ill/rad and my mind dom. I'll be including the effects of certain powers on some of them, such as the STF. For instance, if you pull Ghost Widow and Scirroco up to the path, and you confuse GW before she gets close enough aggro Scirr, she will take off and go back to the start point, so that you can't hold her down while keeping rad buffs on Scirr (not sure the range of rad toggles, this is just an example. I will not give "facts" until I have them for you.)Most of this research will be done on my ill/rad troller. He has 218% recharge with perma hasten and perma AM. I will include a small blurb on whether I managed to pull of a confuse on some of these AV's. I won't be doing it for all of them (see above comment on Hopkins' weaksauce.)