For now his damage is probably going to stay weak. Good news is once you get the pet at 32 it gets a lot better. Heat Loss will help a lot with endurance costs. Your 4 power picks starting at lvl 32--Jack Frost, Sleet, Heat Loss, blast, will be total game changers. The character will never be a damage power house but basic missions will no longer be an issue.
There is an "Iron Blade" temp power you can get around level 30 from a contact in Crotoa. The power has unlimited uses for 3 days of game time. According to ParagonWiki, the contact is Buck Salinger. It may help some with damage. I had the power once and it seemed like it hit pretty hard. If nothing else, the damage is up front, unlike DOTs like your cages. Info is here: http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Iron_Blade
Meanwhile, if you have the cash, you may want to drop some damage procs into Frostbite. I generally don't proc Frostbite because I don't like recasting it a lot. But IMO it really doesn't do enough damage to warrant slotting with regular damage IOs.
Nope.
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Source: http://www.cityofheroes.com/game_inf...rchetypes.html|
The Controller is at the same time the weakest and yet the most powerful of the archetypes. The Controller has few offensive attacks and possesses the fewest hit points. But the Controller has access to a range of powers that no one else has: the Control power sets. Armed with these powers, a Controller can affect the behavior of villains from freezing them in place to routing them away. Armed with such abilities, the Controller is the backbone of many groups involved in large-scale battles - but the Controller depends upon his teammates for protection. |
Controllers are deliberately weak on straight damage counts as their strength is in the control sets. On SO, Crafted IO, and light IO builds, controllers tend to be roughly reliant on team-mates.
However, that can quickly get inversed with intensive usage of IO sets where builds can reach 100% or greater recharge rates. Some of the possible combinations can actually achieve near game-breaking performance.
For example, both Sleet and Heat Loss have a -30% resistance debuff. Stack both of these on a mob then hit the epic power Ice Storm and watch the health just fade away.
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This is a significant part of why you're having endurance problems. All three are treated as utility powers that happen to do damage, and thus cost significantly more endurance than the standard damage formula would dictate. I suggest six-slotting Chilblain, Block of Ice, and Air Superiority ASAP and getting some endred in there. (Recharge and/or hold in Block of Ice would not go amiss, even at the cost of damage--BoI does the same damage as Chilblain, albeit all up front, but it costs more and takes twice as long to recharge.) If you are not averse to frankenslotting that would pay huge dividends in terms of solo damage efficiency.|
Originally Posted by RemusShepherd
I've slotted them all 1xAcc, 3xDam.
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You also have a number of damage proc options. Chilblain will take both slow and immobilize set procs. BoI will take slow and hold set procs. Air Sup will take melee and knockback set procs.
Using Frostbite for damage on its own merits is a horrible idea--it does a little over 9 damage, base, at level 50. People who use it for damage do so because it takes three damage procs (slow, immob, targeted AoE), recharges quickly, and covers a huge area while setting up containment. The procs are doing the lion's share of the work, not Frostbite itself. It also plays poorly with Ice Slick, although nicely with Arctic Air if you can afford it.
Jack at 32 will help, of course, as will Sleet.
In addition to the good advice above, you can load up on temp powers, too. There are a bunch of Temp power attacks that you get for running various story arcs, like the Iron Blade mentioned above. See here. Some of them can be renewed through Ouroborus unlimited times. Then, there are the ones you can get from recipes. They are cheap to buy and not too expensive to craft.
These may help you until you can get your pet at 32 and the APP attacks at 41+. Since you can't enhance your accuracy, liberal use of Infridgidate with its Defense Debuff will help those hit more often.
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I found with my Earth/Storm that slotting some cheap IOs into the T1 and T2 attacks made a large difference when solo. In addition to getting slightly better end reduction, recharge and accuracy numbers than standard SO slotting I was able to work in about an SO worth of Immobilize/Hold duration enhancement which helped a lot soloing. Maelstrom's Fury and Ruin tend to be cheap around level 28-32 and slotting a few of those in helps, Thunderstike is also available but tends to cost more.
Roughly speaking I would say aim for 3 multi-aspec IOs with a damage component, 1 generic level 30 damage IO and two multi-aspect IOs with a mez component. For the multi-aspect damage IOs using dual aspects will ED cap you to damage or use triple aspects for about 82%ish damage and more end/rech/acc.
I think I used:
Dam/End
Dam/Rech
Accuracy/Damage/Recharge
Damage
Accuracy/Mez/Recharge
Mez/End
Assuming all level 30s that works out to (pre-ED):
95.8% damage
43.6% end reduction
56.6% recharge
34.8% accuracy
39.2% mez duration
I didn't keep a lot of track but I think I spent less than 3 million getting all 12 IOs and that was paying buy it nao prices for recipes and salvage.
For the immobilization powers, I would look into the damage procs. It's what I'm doing on my Plant/storm. Note, damage procs are not affected by +dmg buffs, but do get boosted by -res. You can likely get a damage enhancement in your hold as well.
EDIT: AA should take 2 damage procs from confuse sets and another from slows. At level 27, a proc does 43.14 damage. At level 50, 71.75. Factor in -res and you can see there is potential there.
Ill be honest with you and just tell you that you have picked one of the lowest possible damage combinations amongst controllers. I have a level 50 Ice/Cold controller and he really didn't start doing any damage until he got Jack Frost as a pet and then the Cold Mastery pool.
For me Proc's are a very pool way to secure damage because they dont go off enough to actually make a huge difference.
However dont despair because you have a very very powerful control combination. You will excel at buffing your team with shields and Heat Loss is an awesome recovery tool. You will be able to buff your Jack Frost which will keep him alive longer. You will be able to debuff your enemies well with Benumb, Heat Loss, and Sleet, Infrigidate, and Snowstorm. You will be able to control the battle field well with Ice Slick and Artic Air.
Then at level 41 when you get your Epic you will be able to get some attack powers which will round out your character. Ice/Cold is a very lat blooming set but well worth the wait.
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I have a level 27 Ice/Cold controller whose damage output is -- as expected -- weaker than a wet glove.
His powersets only give him three powers that do any damage at all, the single-target hold, the single-target immobilize and the AoE immobilize. I've slotted them all 1xAcc, 3xDam. I took Air Superiority just to give him a melee attack. I don't want to dip into the Fighting pool because he has serious endurance problems. I don't like using the veteran powers (Nemesis Staff, Blackwand, Sands of Mu, etc.) for the same reason; they can't be slotted for end. reduction.
Is there any way I can improve the damage of this controller?
Maybe the only answer is to stick it out until the 40s, when I can choose an Epic power pool that will give me damaging powers. I was just wondering if there were any other options.
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