How do you rank Control sets for Damage?

There was a discussion started in my Electric control Guide about whether Electric Control was the second lowest damage control set. I suggested that we move that discussion here.

My ranking on general damage is probably consistant with most folks, but I think there may be some differences of opinion. Some folks will want to measure sets by effective AoE damage, while others may want to measure sets by how fast a controller can take down an AV, GM or a pylon. My view is based upon my own subjective opinion of how quickly I can go through missions when killing everything.

1. Fire Control (probably not much debate here). Hot Feet adds up to a lot of damage, and the secondary effect is more damage. Plus three crazy imps who do a lot of melee damage.

2. Plant Control (This one is pretty set, too). AoE Confuse + AoE damage from Roots and Creepers, plus a pet with decent damage.

3. Here's where the debates begin. I would probably rank Illusion here because of 4 pets plus a fast single target attack chain. Deceive can also help.

4. Gravity? It has good single target damage even if the chain is a bit slow. The recent changes have made it better. AoE damage is very weak. Singularity is amazingly durable but does only moderate damage.

5. Mind? It has decent single target attack chain and a single AoE damage power, but it lacks a pet. It tries to make up for the pet with two confuse powers.

6. Dark Control. The Haunts add some decent damage, and the pet is OK. Other than that, it really doesn't have any significant damage powers. One aspect of the "debate" is whether you consider the availability to proc up powers in the set. Dark has quite a few places that will take procs, and Living Shadows can do some decent damage with a bunch of procs in it. That might move it up the list.

7. Earth Control. Earth, Ice and Electric are on pretty even levels with only small differences. Stalagmites and Volcanic Gasses (and Salt Crystals, but nobody takes it) have very small amounts of damage. My opinion is that Earth's pet, Animate Stone, really makes a difference ever since he got Seismic Smash. His durability also makes a huge difference.

8. Electric Control. You get a little bit of extra AoE damage from Jolting Chain. In the other thread, Ketch suggested that spamming Electric Fences + Jolting Chain adds up to decent AoE damage. The two Gremlins also have a version of Jolting Chain. I think the damage on the Gremlins is too low for pets that are so fragile.

9. Ice Control. I guess that Flashfreeze, the sleep, has some AoE damage, but it is only taken rarely. You might get a little bit of damage from the confuse in Arctic Air. Jack Frost is not very durable, and doesn't do great damage, either, but he's the best you have.

The rankings would certainly change if you add in other factors, like the ability to proc out powers, how the set compares on teams vs. solo, etc. This was also not taking into account how Incarnate slots will affect the damage done by a set.

So, let the debates begin!

I think what ought to shove Mind a little further down the list isn't so much its "one AoE", but the fact that you don't have steady, reliable AoE Containment and/or the ability to take advantage of it. For instance, you can Mass hyp + Terrorize, but then Containment's broken, and you have to pick off the badies one by one. You can do Total Dom + Terrorize, but by the time Terrorize is back up, the Hold has worn off (unless your recharge and hold duration are insanely good).

Now this is leveraged if you're playing, say, a Kin. Give me a group of 10 guys and they'll all melt in one hit, but I'm sure that's true of any other set. Also, for the sake of this debate, we should be leaving out Secondaries and APPs.

I remember you did some testing some time back, and it revealed that while Mind has roughly the highest ST damage pre-32... but after all the other sets get their pets, Mind drops to the lowest spot on the chart. And of course, that says nothing of AoE potential. I mean, what do we count as "better", a set that can do 50 damage to one guy in one hit, or a set that can do 10 damage to 5 guys in one hit? That's still 50 HP... and of course, make that 10 guys and that's 100 damage being done... but no one's too close to being dead. What do we consider better?

A minor note, but Dark is noteworthy for having extra damage in Living Shadows, more even than Fire Cages, presumably to make up for it being a cone rather than a targeted AoE.

In order to form a better picture of how all sets compare against one another I think we need to examine four areas: single target damage, AoE damage, pet single target damage, and pet AoE damage. I'm thinking I may test with a series of dummy enemies in the AE (built with no attacks) but I would appreciate feedback on how to craft such tests. For instance, I am considering taunting or immobilizing the enemy with a damageless immobilize (Web grenades) if they can be acquired in order to allow pets to damage the mob with less pursuit due to broken moral. Would that skew the test against pets with immobilizes/taunts or better reflect a real play scenario in which the player would likely immobilize the target? Or does the the previously mentioned notion of dummy enemies skew the role survivability plays in how much actual damage pets deal?

I am with Steele on this one regarding containment. At lower levels your rankings are very accurate, but once you factor in Ancillaries and Containment possibilities at level 50, some of the lower performers start to be more effective (elemental sets). Having played both Mind and Illusion into the higher levels, I would trade my left nut...er...eye for a reliable AoE containment power every fight.

I have to admit, I'm not sure if I agree where Plant is. Yes, Seeds of Confusion adds plenty of damage for the AoE Scene, as does Roots (and Carrion Creepers is hard to gauge for that), but both it's Single Target Hold and Immo are fairly lack luster, Carrion Creepers and Seeds are also pretty useless in the GM scene, and well, yeah. Amazing AoE, struggles with ST.

With this in mind, I feel Gravity is "too low". While Illuison has Phantom Army, Phantom, and Spectral Wounds? Gravity's Lift and Propel are worth/almost worth a Aux Pool Blast. Meaning setting up your Immo and going nuts means you're basically firing off 3 Aux Pool Blasts while everyone else gets 1 (sans Illusion) and then has to use their terrible Immo/Hold for damage.

That reason is why I feel it might actually be the better of the ST Focused Primaries. Fire is definitely good, but Fire's Immo and Hold aren't nearly as good as Propel and Lift. While the three Fire Imps definitely beat Singy in damage, Singy is also infinitely less likely to be slaughtered in any type of engagement (Singy is known for tanking spawns, afterall).

Hot Feet is very solid, but it also provokes you entering Melee, which causes some issues of "Ranged AT forced into Melee HRM". Needed to say, I think Gravity is not getting a fair shake here.

Fire Imps may be the superior damage pet, and Fire Cages + Hot Feet beats it's AoE Immo, but Propel and Lift are roughly equal to Aux Pool Blasts, and combined with, say, Fire Blast and Fire Ball? Gravity has 4 of the best attacks a Controller can have.

To that end, Illusion's Damage does suffer, as noted, with it's lack of AoE Immo AND a Single Target Immo. Setting up containment for it is very hard. And while it is an amazing AV/GM Killer (with the proper secondary), it begs to wonder just how Gravity really compares now adays.

The rest of the analysis seems fine, but I do strongly feel Illusion is too high. It is entirely ST focused and has no ability to properly AoE, and it's ST focus can be diminished GREATLY in bigger enemy spread fights. I point this out because you rated Plant so high purely for it's AoE, and Illu purely for it's ST. Gravity has strong ST now (and arguably some of the strongest of the primaries), while also at least having an AoE Immo to help with Fireball.

It, at the very least, beats Illusion is AoE, and it's really hard to say where it's ST Lies.

Would throwing down the Immo for AVs, followed by the Hold to set up Impact for 10 seconds, and then working in Lift, Hurl, and an Aux Blast put it ahead of most other sets? Again, that is practically 3 Aux Blasts to everyone elses 1.

But, numbers. I'd definitely say Gravity really jumped up a bit with it's adjustments.

GD would only need to be used once every 10 seconds, to reapply the Impact effect. Now, there's one other important thing to note if your analysis: Illusion's personal damage drops significantly on AVs due to the inability to apply self-containment with Purple Triangles going. If you have another source of immo... well, no. We'll ignore the Team Setting for obvious reasons.

I do not think I can agree with the logic that the 4(5) pets makes up for the lack of AoE damage. You cannot control where that damage is going, and it's worse when it comes to a situation involving the need to focus a target down, and your pets are doing whatever they feel like at the moment. Such wild-card uncontrollable damage should not be praised, but penalized.

The damage is significant, but it is prone to randomness.

Moreover, I'm curious about this 'Speed' thing you're talking about...

Gravity: GD (1.98) > Lift (1.188) > Propel (2.224) > Fire Blast (1.452) |Cut Off Here To Add Up Time| > Lift (1.188) > Propel (2.224) > Fire Blast (1.452) > Repeat From Beginning

Total Time with GD: 6.774
Total Time on Second Rotation with out GD: 4.794
Combined in Two Rotations: 11.538

Unfortunately with 200% Global Recharge and 100% Slotted in Lift, there is a very brief (1.452 Animation from Fire Blast to 1.5 Recharge on Lift, not Propel DERP) gap that prevents L > P > L > FB > L > P > L > FB, etc etc. A bit more global recharge would fix this, but the above of GD > L > P > FB > L > P > FB > Repeat is fine.

Illusion: Blind (1.848) > SW (1.32) > (Fire) Blast (1.42) > SW (1.32)

Total Time: 5.908
Combined in Two Rotations: 11.816

Your proposed chain is less than second faster with GD involved, is more than a second slower when GD does not need to be used on the second rotation, as it is only needed once every 10 seconds.

When considering two full rotations, Gravity is faster by less than half a second. Gravity is the faster attack chain.

Moreover, unless Mids is wrong ( Since Servers are down and I'm too lazy to hit up Beta ), SW is strictly inferior to Propel and Lift, especially the latter.

PS: When you said Lift and Propel waste damage on Minions, Illusion vastly wastes damage on AVs and other bulky enemies due to Spectral Damage. This goes both ways. If Illusion is having all four (five) pets focusing on AV, it's likely going to beat out Gravity in ST damage... but... hrm. This may be worth testing. And let's keep in mind this is only applicable to Perma PA, which is not the easiest thing in the world to obtain! But if we MUST look at absolute high end, I would NEVER say the 4(5) pets of Illusion is enough to offset it's inability to provide AoE Containment and AoE Damage from that Containment and Fireball, as it is FAR too random.

I take damage resistance with a grain of salt, except Psionic Damage and Lethal Damage. Smashing is surprisingly not that heavily resisted, and amusingly enough it has plenty of things weak to it (Robots!). While most things aren't resisting Psionic, the sheer amount of Psionic resistance on a given enemy that is resistant to it, hurts a lot.

As for Mids and Spectral Damage, it's something I'll calculate in-game when I'm feeling up to it (IE: Not right this moment), but!

GD (1.98) > Lift (1.188) > Propel (2.224)
= 5.392
Alternatively, Crush into L + D is a kill also, and animates a bit faster at 1.584, thusly...

= 4.996 using Crush over GD.

vs, to be safe because GD or Crush > Lift > Propel IS a kill on a Minion, for certain...

Illusion: Blind (1.848) > SW (1.32) > (Fire) Blast (1.42) > SW (1.32)

= 5.94

Slower than both chains.

If B > SW > Blast is enough to drop a minion, then it's 4.62. Faster, but not terribly in the case of Crush over GD.

If I were going to consider using Crush for Containment - (Which, on Bosses and such you also need to consider as well. If you are only strictly considering Illusion at Perma PA levels of destruction, this is likely an unfair assessment. Gravity's best chain is a very, very recharge light investment. If we're going strictly at the Super High End and Perma PA is always considered, Illusion is generally hard to beat for every other Primay. Again, I feel Perma PA is an unfair assessment: It is extremely expensive for most secondaries to accomplish.) - I would probably consider, on Bosses, leading with Crush, and simply not using GD until the second rotation round. It does hurt Lift and Propel slightly, but doing Crush into GD is a bit "Meh" to me. Depends, and I'd have to test if I liked it.

I have the option to lead with Crush on a Boss and going from there (Or an AV). Illusion does not, and needs to do two rotations to begin to use containment on Bosses, and is never going to Containment an AV aside from Triangles Down issues (Again, ignoring team-based control, which is unfair for this debate).

Moreover, we can't entirely count out Singy here. Singy DOES use Crush and GD, allowing me to NOT need to use one or the other on a Boss to Containment right away. Honestly, with the changes to Singy and Gravity? Singy is not a bad damage pet anymore. At all. For straight up damage, Singy beats Phanty (although Phanty has an AoE), including considering the Decoy.

When it's all said and done, I think we can probably assume Gravity is going to win in an AoE Skill Speed, at least in a sense the AoE damage of Gravity is reliable enough to know where it's going, while Illusion is prone to the Army and the Phantasm doing whatever the heck they want.

I did bother to just log in and check Spectral Wounds. Lift does beat it (both in factoring and not factoring Spectral Damage mechanics), but it is better than Propel by about 14 DPA. Enough to acknowledge, definitely, but still better than Blind and such.

I think I can agree to the following:

Gravity Control is more Reliable in ST and AoE, and is not nearly as expensive to bring to it's peak of power. Illusion Control is less reliable due to a bit of AI controlled damage being in it's main kit, but performs exceptionally when enough of an investment is given to it. Illusion more than likely wins in raw STDPS at Perma PA levels, while AoE is a bit harder to determine due to it relying almost entirely on how PA and Phantasm decide to play.

In prime enviroments, Illusion is likely the superior performer, although the lack of AoE Containment is most definitely a 'thing'. All in All, it's just a factor of reliability and expense.

Illusion is most definitely a powerful set, no doubt. But I strongly think Gravity is pushing higher and higher now.

Also re: Imps - Those things explode so quickly, but are very much little damage dealing monsters.

My gaming time has been sharply curtailed while my wife and I focus on getting the next version of our website done and online, so I haven't been able to do any specific testing.

Based on my experience playing multiple Mind/, Grav/ (and I have played Grav/ a fair bit since the re-vamp), Fire/ and Dark/ controllers I'd totally put Dark/ above both Mind/ and Grav/ if damage is the criteria.

Dark/ has no problem setting containment which *immediately* puts it above Mind/ for anything over single target and esp for PTOD targets.

The Shades from Haunt are actually excellent damage AND control (not as nearly as good a control tool as PA, but you CAN aim them at a mob/spawn much more effectively from range) and the (relatively) fast recharge makes them an excellent fire and forget dmg power.

Living Shadows not only does better dmg than most AOE immobs (Roots is best IIRC followed by Fire cages?), but the huge cone makes it easier to get most of a spawn that often has a couple outliers. With 4 dmg procs slotted it does EXCELLENT dmg and has the -kb to leverage things like Tornado etc.

To me Dark/ plays like a hybrid of several other primaries with many of the advantages of other sets. It does quite good ST dmg when you factor in Haunt (way better DPA than the ST attack powers like the ST immob or lev/lift from other sets), and does excellent AOE dmg as well once you get Living Shadows slotted up with procs.

Long story short: I'd put Dark/ right up there with Plant/ and Fire. Illusion is up there as well for single target, but the lack of an AOE immob/dmg power really hurts Illusion/ when you start looking at AOE dmg.

That's my two shiny coins...

Arg

Slightly tangential (and I know we are talking primary only) but I was wondering how much the addition of dark servant and it's aoe immob changes the damage output of Illusion. [<---rhetorical]

In other words, how much does this particular choice of secondary "improve" the primary when looking at damage output and would you think its one of the more significant pairings that boost production for a primary. And are their other pairings that significantly change the way a primary performs.

Sorry for the tangent.

Haunt has a major issue in that the pets are prone to dying fairly easily, and only have a single attack. While Imps are much like this, Imp Brawl is by far superior to Shadow Punch. But, Haunt is definitely not bad (For Controllers).

However, Dark has one big shortcoming in comparison to this: Their ST Immo and ST Hold are two of the worst for DPA in the game. By far. Slow animation and low base damage = ugh.

Haunt helps offset this, but it can't be ignored Dark's personal damage is fairly lackluster. It strongly relies on it's pets to deal the bulk of it's damage, but on the flipside it also has the major lack of personal damage.

Illusion gets both.

Also, the Cone vs. the T.AoEs of the other AoE Immos? AoE Immos are Radius 30. This is MORE than large enough to hit an entire spawn. The only way you wouldn't is if the spawn was somehow spread extremely far away. In being a cone, it is more likely to miss things due to the cone dipping downward due to bad targeting metrics, etc.

Dark is a good set, but you're ignoring the weaknesses (Personal Damage, Pet Squishiness).

Quote:

Originally Posted by MentalMaden Slightly tangential (and I know we are talking primary only) but I was wondering how much the addition of dark servant and it's aoe immob changes the damage output of Illusion. In other words, how much does this particular choice of secondary "improve" the primary when looking at damage output and would you think its one of the more significant pairings that boost production for a primary. And are their other pairings that significantly change the way a primary performs. Sorry for the tangent.

Terribly unreliable. You have to trust it to line the cone up properly, and Dark Servant tends to sit ontop of enemies, thusly missing many of them with that cone. It would definitely help, but it further cements Illusion in "Unreliable results".

You can't really disagree with the fact it's ST Immo and ST Hold are two of the worst of the entire AT. That all said, YMMV otherwise but of the "Top ST Sets", it can't contend with them for personal damage. Which means Haunt is only really offsetting it's lack of a personal damage ability (IE: Spectral Wounds, Hot Feet, Lift, Propel, etc etc), and the fact the ST Immo and ST Hold are terrible.

Umbral Beast is just a standard single pet. Decent damage not much else.

So, I must strongly disagree that Haunt lifts it near or above any other set. No personal attacks, and two of the worst ST's in the AT.