So, are mezz characters as bad as they seem?

p4nj4kr3jn · July 2015

I am a City of heroes refugee, and used to things like Controllers and Dominators (if you know them). I am used to jumping into a group, tossing a 45 second sleep on one baddie, a 45 second hold on another, and beating up the third. And these mez durations are the starter ones, enhancable to double. And these are click powers, no charge or maintain.

But I just recently went to the Public Test Server with a level 40 I made, and respecced into high PRE, tried lining up all the specs and benefits, ranked some mezzes to 3, and as far as I can see, a level 40 MAXXED out hold lasts 29 seconds. And takes a charge or maintain.

Am I wrong here, or are mezzers total weak sauce in CO?

WitchofDread · July 2015

have you taken the Manipulator toggle?

The holds in CO have a 'life bar' essentially. So yes while the hold time itself isnt great, the hold itself can be damaged causing the hold to break.

hemslord · July 2015

Whilst soloing I'm sure that holds etc can be fantastic (Tazer Arrow for example can easily have an over 1 minute sleep on the enemy). Unfortunately as WitchofDread has pointed out, damage will weaken holds which I don't remember being the case in CoX. I find that if I have some sort of Mez I end up using it purely as an interrupt instead of a true hold.

p4nj4kr3jn · July 2015

City did not have that life bar, it's true, but I'm soloing so I am not that worried about it. Let me ask you this though, how do you get mezzes to over a minute? I tested a few ego mezzes and they were 25-35 seconds max.

raighn · July 2015

Holds in CO break incredibly fast in PvE, whether you're solo or in a group it doesn't really matter... Granted they WILL last significantly longer Solo due to you having control over what is and what isn't being attacked... whilst in a group people will attack anything and everything... additionally the fact that most controller characters in CO have specs that cause held targets to take more damage &/or heal attackers, a lot of people try to capitalize on this and make b-lines towards held enemies either to get some quick healing or to try and down that enemy as fast as possible while they are weakened.

Essentially Controller builds in CO play a significantly different role than controllers in other games. While in most games a controller build would be focused on locking down enemies while they (or their group) powers down the rest... in CO they play more as a Debuffer who can attempt to lock down enemies for a very brief time...

The main issue with holds in PvE is that the AI seems to have a spam hold break function that operates 10x faster than any player can possibly manage... this tends to result in long duration holds breaking after only 2 or 3 seconds and maintained holds building up a full 3 stack of hold resist from a single maintain... There have been many requests on the forums over the past several years for Cryptic to seriously address the poor state that controller builds are in when it comes to PvE... however most of them tend to go for the route of making holds stronger rather than fixing the underlying problem which is how easy it is for the AI to spam hold break... if holds are buffed then it would tick off both the PvP and PvP crowd... since holds vs players are pretty damn effective as is...

So basically... if you're building a controller for PvE then you're going to be more of a Debuffer in CO, but if your building it for PvP then you're going to have some annoyingly strong holds on your hand.

flowcyto · July 2015

For grouping in PvE, its pretty much stuns w/ Manip or bust- that is if ya want things to actually stay CC'd for a decent amount of time. That, or knock things around.. but that has little to do w/ hold-based CC in this game.

p4nj4kr3jn · July 2015

How long do stuns with Manip last? What power combos? Thx.

WitchofDread · July 2015

Depends on your presence stat too. You will want that as your primary stat as that constitutes hold strength.

What theme do you have?

flowcyto · July 2015

5-sec stuns aren't too hard to get w/ 8 stacks of Manip, and ya can go higher than that w/ good gear and certain specs. Ranks of powers also usually lengthen their stun duration. You'd want either Pres or Int PSS (DOminion or Battle of Wits) and probably Sentinel's Torment and/or Sentry's Stalling Tactics to optimize stun times.

As for powers: there aren't many AoE stuns to pick from (Sonic Arrow w/ adv, Thunderclap, TK Maelstrom, Gas Arrow w/ adv, Vengeance and Condemn w/ adv), though there's a good amount of single-target ones out there if ya count advs. Ego Storm can also be a decent AoE hold when using Manip, but not as reliable as a stun.

p4nj4kr3jn · July 2015

Don't really have a theme yet, apart from Solo DPS PvE with a high Rec. Also FYI, I only play levelling builds, meaing I dump characters immediately when they hit 40.

p4nj4kr3jn · July 2015

5 sec stuns are considered good? Wow.

raighn · July 2015

p4nj4kr3jn wrote: »

5 sec stuns are considered good? Wow.

As I mentioned in my earlier post... Controllers in CO play quite differently than they do in other games. I'm sure many of us would like for them to play the same or closer to the same as other games, but without a major overhaul of the hold system and the speed at which NPCs break holds, there's just no way we can get that.

A 5 second stun is very good, considering that the stun will usually break somewhere around 3 seconds on average...

Since you'll be playing a solo character, sleeps are very good options for you... in solo you can certainly play much closer to a traditional controller since you won't have extra damage sources breaking your holds, the only thing that will break the hold is the AI, time, and yourself...

Interestingly, my highest damage character uses Manipulator... though she's not exactly a controller though... just happend that the best powers that fit her theme happened to be Stuns & Holds, so her build ended up getting a large focus on Controller/Debuffer in regards to her specs and Form...

bluhman · July 2015

45 second holds are well-possible in this game with Manipulator, as others have pointed out.

This can be used to your advantage via targeting one held target at a time, ensuring that the full hold duration is used to your advantage for each individual target, but this really only comes into play for singleplayer areas. On teams, your teammates incessant wide-area damage will likely break them out in about 3 seconds, which is where-again, amazing 6-second stuns will come into play and just flat-out stop your enemies from doing anything about the sudden onslaught of damage from you and your allies.

In the context of an alert, though, a mezzer capable of 45 second holds/6 second stuns is probably one of the easier character types that allow you to just flat-out branch off from the rest of your team and dominate whole crowds. In fact, considering hold health, it might be the best way to help your team, depending on how you designed the character.

Most of the holding in this game is used for defense debuff or healing specs. I agree it could be given some extra edge, but that could really be said for most alternate tactics here - it's all very much damage based and not heavily focused on things like enemy debuff or holds and things. It simply isn't that sort of game to be honest, because it really tries to emphasize action, movement, and managing multiple sources of incoming damage/knock with your blocks. Being a high-damage controller type (or even a low-damage one if you will) undermines that. At least I think that's the sort of logic Cryptic's approaching the combat here with.

foxyperson · July 2015

Sadly, there's only one way to do actual, effective CC in CO, and that is piling up Darkness' and Telepahy's area holds (which, obviously, bars Silver users from even trying) in addition to fully speccing for PRE and holds.

Also, while playing in teams, CC is only good for carrying lowbie/n00b teams in Grab alerts because, other than that, if a team takes more than five seconds in killing a group of enemies, they're basically "doing it wrong."

p4nj4kr3jn · July 2015

I think I am still suffering some confusion - people are talking about 45 second holds, and six second stuns - but if you have something held for 45 seconds, why do you even need stuns? What's the difference?

raighn · July 2015

p4nj4kr3jn wrote: »

I think I am still suffering some confusion - people are talking about 45 second holds, and six second stuns - but if you have something held for 45 seconds, why do you even need stuns? What's the difference?

Unlike a lot of other games, CO actually does 1 thing right with it's CC's... they don't all behave the same. Those 45 second holds will break very fast from incomming damage. However, the 6 second stun will get most if not all of it's durration before it breaks. Stuns are only broken by use of the hold-break function, AO/ADs, and just high CC resistance.

bluhman · July 2015

p4nj4kr3jn wrote: »

I think I am still suffering some confusion - people are talking about 45 second holds, and six second stuns - but if you have something held for 45 seconds, why do you even need stuns? What's the difference?

For 45-second holds, those have hold health. So the hold might theoretically last for around 45-50 seconds, but doing damage quickly reduces that duration - especially if the damage you're dealing is extremely high.

In contrast, a stun that only lasts 6 seconds will last 6 seconds regardless. Thus, the general rule is that: If you can do enough damage in a short period of time to kill an enemy outright, stuns are better. If you're seeking to keep side-mobs held and not do immediate damage to them, then use longer-duration holds.

rtma · July 2015

2 Words - Power Creep.

raighn · July 2015

rtma wrote: »

2 Words - Power Creep.

Power creep doesn't really factor into controller builds outside of PvP. As previously stated CCs last significantly shorter durrations against NPCs than they do against Players. This is due to multiple factors. 1) NPCs can spam hold-break a lot faster than players can. 2) unless soloing, there will almost always be more sources of high damage to break the hold in PvE than in PvP, so team-mates will shorten the durration of most of our holds by atleast half. 3) Many DPS abilities have CC components as carrier effects and often result in hold resist sacks building up on enemies from an onslaught of weak holds from DPSers leaving controllers with very little that they can actually do in some fights.

Yes, controllers are great for Soloing, but thats mosly out of necessity rather than power creep. A controller build can just as easily be ompletely worthless in solo as a DPS build. Nearly every "high power" build in the game requires a large amount of knowhow to play properly and get the results that are frequently complained about as being OP. Sure, there are several that you can litteraly just spam random abilities and do fine, but a controller build is anything but. Controllers require a heavy amount of micromanagement to play properly. Without that micromanagement they comme off as extreamly subpar. Quite honestly, anyone who is willing and capable of micromanaging a true controller build should by all means have the level of power such a build is capable of, they arn't just spamming an "I win" button, no they are choosing actions and targets carefully and precicely to maximize their builds potential.

p4nj4kr3jn · July 2015

OK, so stuns are holds that generally don't break on incoming damage?

But for me, soloing PvE levelling content, if I combine holds with single target attacks, so long as I don't attack anyone I have mezzed, won't they stay held for the duration?

So then I have a few follow-up questions:

a) From what you are all saying, sounds like I ought to be able to put a 45 second hold or sleep on a group, then start defeating them one by one with ST attacks. So my question is this: what do I have to have to lay a 45 second hold/sleep on a group? What set of stats/powers/specs/ranks/advantages/etc DO that?

b) I assume that if I hold a baddie, the hold resistance they get toward a second application coulnts for hold, sleeps, all mezzes? That is, I can't just alternate from holds to sleeps and back to avoid the increasing mez resistance?

raighn · July 2015

p4nj4kr3jn wrote: »

OK, so stuns are holds that generally don't break on incoming damage?

Correct

p4nj4kr3jn wrote: »

But for me, soloing PvE levelling content, if I combine holds with single target attacks, so long as I don't attack anyone I have mezzed, won't they stay held for the duration?

Unfortnately, no... NPC's get to attempt to break out of holds just like we do, however, they can do so at a much higher rate than us which has been a problem for a long time. Holds that don't allow break-free, such as sleep, however, will hold for the full duration so long as they don't take damage.

p4nj4kr3jn wrote: »

a) From what you are all saying, sounds like I ought to be able to put a 45 second hold or sleep on a group, then start defeating them one by one with ST attacks. So my question is this: what do I have to have to lay a 45 second hold/sleep on a group? What set of stats/powers/specs/ranks/advantages/etc DO that?

Presence is a must... Int or Pre PSS... Sentinel, Sentry, and Overseer specs all offer a number of specs that improve hold durration and/or strength. Sleep is possibly the easiest (if not the only) CC power to get into the 45 second range...

p4nj4kr3jn wrote: »

b) I assume that if I hold a baddie, the hold resistance they get toward a second application coulnts for hold, sleeps, all mezzes? That is, I can't just alternate from holds to sleeps and back to avoid the increasing mez resistance?

For the most part, yes... Sleep, Paralyze, Stun, Placate... all stack the same Hold Resistance... Root & Snare both have their own separate resistances though... they are also significantly weaker than most holds though... oddly enough though, Root Resistance appears to weaken ALL holds, though it still only makes them Root Immune at 3 stacks.

p4nj4kr3jn · July 2015

Alright, it would seem then that the best strategy for Solo PvE is to lay down an AoE sleep and then pick them off one by one. What are the best AoE sleeps that can last 45 sec+?

flowcyto · July 2015

Ego Sleep is pretty much ur only choice, unless there's a device out there that does something similar. Fortunately, it can be an AoE effect too, depending on how long ya charge it.

roughbearmattach · July 2015

Ego Sleep is great, and the DoT (damage over time) powers in Telepathy DO NOT break the sleep effect.
Myself and many others, notably @Ravenforce, have made super-successfully solo toons using this strategy. You can mix some other powers in, too.

Take Congress of Selves (from telepathy) as your passive.

raighn · July 2015

roughbearmattach wrote: »

Take Congress of Selves (from telepathy) as your passive.

Did they ever fix Congress of Selves? Last I heard it wasn't providing over half of it's effect.

roughbearmattach · July 2015

Works great. My level 40 CoS hero is very effective in PvE and Rampages

raighn · July 2015

So, the damage bonus and damage resistance bypass on DoTs works now?

p4nj4kr3jn · July 2015

Cool - just got my new character to 13, dropped in some good powers, will upload the build so far in a bit.

I skipped CoT only because I think I've fallen in love with Regen for Solo levelling. I did take Ego Sleep, and it works really well with Telepathic Reverberation, as does Ego Blast w/ Mind Opener. Next step, Manipulator and Ego Sprites. I think.

p4nj4kr3jn · July 2015

...and by CoT, I actually mean CoS, as in Congress of Selves...

theravenforce · July 2015

Hi there,

Sorry I'm late to this thread!

I'd suggest reading this for a good idea of what you are wading into when it comes to crowd control. I wrote this as part of the wiki:

Crowd Control

The above link will detail what sort of control powers there are in Champions Online as well as what can work best to your advantage.

A few basic tips:

- Do not team with or work with other crowd controllers, unless you are all well organized.
- When in alerts, do your own thing. It is useless waiting for a tank or someone else to move in. But be sure that you can control a group before moving in.
- Your crowd control powers in a teamed situation will not last as long as you have invested for them to work unless your team mates are all using the four Telepathy DoTs which do not break crowd control effects (Primary ones, so Stun/Sleep and Paralyze. They will negatively interact with Incapacitates however).

I would strongly urge you to read that page in order to have a good understanding of Crowd Control.

Feel free to PM me Mentella@RavenForce in game or message me on these forums if you have any other questions.

theravenforce · July 2015

raighn wrote: »

So, the damage bonus and damage resistance bypass on DoTs works now?

Damage bonus has never been an issue for CoS.

The penetration is spotty at best but even though that is a legitimate issue, you can use Congress of Selves to a very good effect, provided you know what you are doing...just like any other passive.

theravenforce · July 2015

As for soloing...

Honestly? Just target a central member of a mob using Ego Sleep, full charge it once everyone in the group is close to the central member and unleash Ego Sleep.

Then lay on Ego Sprites, Mental Storm, Shadow of Doubt and Mental Leech and stand there and watch them die. Pretty sinister when you think about it but if you are aware enough of your surroundings as a crowd controller when soloing...nothing save for the boss will be able to deal you damage and you can go at your own pace.

Anything that has two or three or four bar HP might/will survive the first round of DoTs, so what I usually do is reapply the DoTs until they are in the final bar of HP then you can full charge your Ego Blast w/ Mind Opener and open their mind to the wonders of unconsciousness.

Also don't bother ranking Manipulator Form. On a controller build you won't need to.

Also forget applying back to back holds unless it is Ego Sleep + a fully charged paralyze ability, even then avoid that. Holds applied on existing holds will reduce the duration of the lower category hold granting your target a stack of hold resistance, which works against you as the name suggests.

Teaming...

If this is your focus, grab stuns, loads of stuns with Manipulator. In my opinion, due to the order of holds, Stun class of CC is grossly over performing. Which is why it is great for teaming situations because damage to target will not break the stun.

And as you will read (provided you click the link in my first post) no other hold operates like this.

Also try your best to either focus on targets you team aren't focused on if you feel like sticking with the team.

Feeling confident? Go for a group that is waiting to get beaten up, lock them down and leave them as a gift wrapped present for you team mates.

Also different classes of foe have differing CC resistance. Here are the different types of enemies in CO:

Henchman - Villain - Enforcer - Master Villain - Class One

Henchmen are the easiest to control as they have very very basic resistance, Villains (Two HP bars) have higher resistance but are still controllable without Manipulator.

Master Villains have the highest CC resistance of enemies in Class One and usually without Manipulator they break out of control effects very quickly, the same goes for Enforcers but on a lower scale.

Super Villain - Legendary - Cosmic - Class Two

Right off the bat know that, Legendary and Cosmic are immune to Player Powers which apply CC effects. There is no phase for them to be vulnerable to player powered CC. They cannot be paralyzed, stunned, slept or incapacitated. Some higher order CC abilities apply some sort of debuff as a trade off for not working on a target or apply one on targets who break out.

Off the top of my head I'm thinking of Ego Sleep which applies Disorient.

Now...this is where you separate the "people with powers who apply stuns" from "the controllers" when it comes to Super Villains (Only SV's sadly). Without Manipulator Form Super Villain resistance to Crowd Control is too strong for player powers to breach normally with their powers.

However when Manipulator is mixed in, you can apply Crowd Control to Super Villains.

Incapacitates

(Incaps can work on SV's for a brief moment even without Manipulator, but this isn't reliable)

Sleep

and

Stuns

Hope this helps.

roughbearmattach · July 2015

Well said, Ravenforce

riverocean · July 2015

I would say follow theravenforce's advice to the letter. It's pretty spot on.

Here's my take on crowd control in CO. I tried for a long time and finally I followed a build that Cyrone had posted awhile ago: http://champions-online.proboards.com/thread/2661

It worked really well - the stun's were able to keep whole rooms of baddies controlled. But the real issue is that in CO DPS is king. By the time you've charged up a hold, most of the team will have wiped out the mobs.

That's the sad part really - you'll end up spending a lot of time creating something - that for the most part is only fun solo.

theravenforce · July 2015

I'd also like to add. If you ever run into Shamballah Vampires in Vibora Bay, do not be overly alarmed that they do not act correctly under Crowd Control effects. They have been broken for years. I am not sure why this is but their resistance to crowd control is waay too high for their enemy class. It actually hovers somewhere between Super Villain and Legendary, which is completely off considering that they are just Master Villains.

Basically, any CC applied will hold them infrequently meaning they will still attack and retain full movement whilst under the effects of CC, with brief moments of being held in between.

It really is something you need to see for yourself, quite funny but broken.

So, are mezz characters as bad as they seem?

Comments