What's the best mass Crowd Control power?

pr0fp0tts · May 2018

Crowd Control's never been much of a requirement in Champions Online, but with the recent Save the Earth alert's design it looks like some mass CC would be very helpful. I've had a few toons with low-level or single-target CC powers, but I've never focused on CC on a character before. So the question is: what's the best power &/or power set for locking down enemy mobs en-mass? Is there anything that could lock down all the spawns in Save the Earth, to let the rest of the team get to work? Or would a decent CC build be only a partial 'solution' to the alert's design? Or not helpful at all?

If there's any existing threads covering this, feel free to point me in the right direction!

Thanks in advance!

legendarylycan · May 2018

ego sleep power-side, psionic accelerator device-side

ealford1985 · May 2018

Taco Bell

flowcyto · May 2018

AoE stuns + Manip, if we're talking easy trash CC and you expect the mobs to continue to take dmg while controlled. There's many stuns now throughout the powersets, whether baseline or via special advs. AoE holds or Ego Sleep + Manip can be better for pure max duration, if you don't expect the mobs to take much inc dmg to break those early. AoE knocks can work too, though those won't scale w/ CC strength or Manip, and KBs can scatter mobs.

I don't know how the new fight is like, but you could see the CC Build sticky for some examples that were tailored to CCing in various higher-end fights:
https://www.arcgames.com/en/forums/championsonline/#/discussion/1205723/crowd-control-builds/p1

pr0fp0tts · May 2018

That's all very helpful, thanks guys!

It looks like Ego Sleep is still the basic way to go then. My old Mind AT has a Psionic Accelerator which turned her from the slowest-leveling toon I had at the time to one of the fastest when I lucked into it from one of those old Drifter boxes - I'll have to get round to actually working through her forced respec and try her in the new alert. Mostly in alerts in the past she tossed in the Psionic Accelerator where she could, but was generally stuck trying to keep suicidal PUG-mates from getting themselves faceplanted - could be a whole new ballgame with Save the Earth!

sterga · May 2018

Depends on if you go pug or premade. In a pug, AoE click stuns as Flow said will probably be best. In a Premade, you can tell your team not to blow up the world and make whatever CC build you want.

Repels might be an interesting choice to shove enemies around. There is no resistance as far as I know. Stuff like Howl or Entangling Mesh can help for their root / snare.

spinnytop · May 2018

The best AoE CC power in the game for the purpose you're asking about is Telekinetic Barrage with the Dazzle advantage.

1. It has no cooldown meaning you can spam it constantly
2. With 5 stacks of Ego Leech ( which the power itself will build in short order ) it stuns on the first tick ( and every tick ).
3. It has 100 ft range.
4. It has a sphere aoe.

So basically you have an on demand, long range aoe stun ( and remember that stuns are not reduced by incoming damage ). If you're using this on a non-CC toon then you can severely cripple the ability of NPCs to attack, reducing their damage output dramatically. If you are using this on a CC toon with high hold strength then you can perma-stun every mob in the alert from full health to dead even when they're swarming your party. All you have to do is cycle through targets to spread the stun around and anytime you see anything try to move or attack, hit it again.

Oh and it also does decent damage.

magpieuk2014 · May 2018

Any stun works in STE. I like Hex of Suffering for a Root/Stun/Debuff combination that you can just fire and forget.

hasukurobi · May 2018

spinnytop wrote: »

The best AoE CC power in the game for the purpose you're asking about is Telekinetic Barrage with the Dazzle advantage.

1. It has no cooldown meaning you can spam it constantly
2. With 5 stacks of Ego Leech ( which the power itself will build in short order ) it stuns on the first tick ( and every tick ).
3. It has 100 ft range.
4. It has a sphere aoe.

So basically you have an on demand, long range aoe stun ( and remember that stuns are not reduced by incoming damage ). If you're using this on a non-CC toon then you can severely cripple the ability of NPCs to attack, reducing their damage output dramatically. If you are using this on a CC toon with high hold strength then you can perma-stun every mob in the alert from full health to dead even when they're swarming your party. All you have to do is cycle through targets to spread the stun around and anytime you see anything try to move or attack, hit it again.

Oh and it also does decent damage.

Or Toxic Breathe with its Stunning advantage. Pair these with I believe Sentinel's final Specialization that allows you to give everyone who hits a stunned critter a super version of Mend and not only can you stun lock looots of goons but you can help heal your party while they kill them too.

sterga · May 2018

Electric Current + Bad Wiring with Ball Lightening + triplicity
Skarn's Bane + Tranced with Pillar of Poz + Dilemma
Frost Breath, Flamethrower, Gas Arrow, Wind Barrier, all have various effects that can work too, but maybe not as well. Cones can hit a lot of crap though.

roughbearmattach · May 2018

TK Maelstrom, Expansive Terrain adv, using Manipulator, gives a huge PBAoE stun.
Super effective, and fairly short cooldown.

pwestolemyname · May 2018

roughbearmattach wrote: »

TK Maelstrom, Expansive Terrain adv, using Manipulator, gives a huge PBAoE stun.
Super effective, and fairly short cooldown.

This is, by far, my favorite general-use CC power in the game. On a solid CC build it basically allows you to perma-hold most mobs. Plus, it does nice damage. I also use it with Sleep on the Kigadogs.

pr0fp0tts · May 2018

Well, I tried my Mind AT again, focusing specialisations on holds, and it worked really well (as in 'easily soloing lairs with junk gear' well)!

I re-tooled my TK FF with Telekinetic Barrage + Dazzle and TK Maelstrom + Expansive Intellect, with Manipulator, and Presence as the Primary SS, again with specialisations focused on holds and... well, I still can't seem to get a stun duration over 4 seconds. Are stuns not in the 'holds' category for some calculations? Or is there something else I'm missing? Targets quickly rack up their three stacks of hold resistance, making them immune, so I'm guessing stuns are 'holds', at least for some purposes. I'm still running in Ranged DPS mode, so maybe it's the reduced CC ability that role imposes (although running in Hybrid doesn't seem to make a difference beyond less damage)? I can kill standard mobs pretty quickly,of course, just by using a maintain AoE attack, but it's not slowing them down hugely (you know, beyond death slowing them down...) so I'm not sure how much it'll help when I get in a situation of being massively overrun.

flowcyto · May 2018

Yea, stuns have a short duration cause they don't break early to inc dmg, whereas other hold types do. When solo, you obv won't have to deal w/ teammates dpsing down your mobs, so you may not see the full benefit of what stuns can do there, and normal hold-based CC w/ longer duration could net you more mileage then. Regardless, in groups you shouldn't really be putting yourself in situations where you are massively overrun, and you can have other defensive tools to deal w/ that sort of thing anyways.

pantagruel01 · May 2018

My CC build with full manipulator stacks is currently at 13s for a rank 3 stun; without manipulator it's at 7.8s. It's possible to do more, that's with some investment in Con and aura of arcane clarity instead of primal majesty; realistic max is in the 15-16s range.

pwestolemyname · June 2018

Yeah, on my CC build, AoPM in Support with Manip turned off, she has 6.3 seconds stun. With full stacks of Manip, it is 11 seconds. Now that is a Wardicator spec, so she is missing some of the spec bonuses to time, but still gets plenty of length.

In hybrid with full stacks, it is 8.7 seconds, so role definitely has a significant effect.

sannia1 · June 2018

There's a huge caveat to Telekinetic Barrage. You'll quickly build up hold resistance stacks stunning your target every .5 seconds.

I like Telepathic Storm with the advantage. You can fire it and start blocking right after. It's a good panic button.

spinnytop · June 2018

sannia1 wrote: »

There's a huge caveat to Telekinetic Barrage. You'll quickly build up hold resistance stacks stunning your target every .5 seconds.

It doesn't stun targets that are currently stunned by it, meaning that won't happen. You should probably use powers before trying to give information on them.

pwestolemyname · June 2018

spinnytop wrote: »

sannia1 wrote: »

There's a huge caveat to Telekinetic Barrage. You'll quickly build up hold resistance stacks stunning your target every .5 seconds.

It doesn't stun targets that are currently stunned by it, meaning that won't happen. You should probably use powers before trying to give information on them.

YO, what? That is really good news! I picked it up on my CCer, just for the heck of it, and I was wondering if she was just stacking tons of resist on everyone. I'm glad to hear that it doesn't.

chuckwolf · June 2018

Not really CC powers and they have fairly long cooldowns but Gravitic Ripple basically locks any enemy it hits in place while damaging them, and Gravity driver can stun up to 10 enemies at once while causing a decent amount of damage.

markhawkman · June 2018

sterga wrote: »

Electric Current + Bad Wiring

This one power with Manipulator is hilariously op in some situations. Electrocute a group of mooks, now they're stunned and stop attacking you.... continue electrocuting until they die.

kamokami · June 2018

markhawkman wrote: »

This one power with Manipulator is hilariously op in some situations. Electrocute a group of mooks, now they're stunned and stop attacking you.... continue electrocuting until they die.

I don't see how that's any more OP than the option of just don't bother and nuke the mobs into the afterlife in one shot.

spinnytop · June 2018

kamokami wrote: »

I don't see how that's any more OP than the option of just don't bother and nuke the mobs into the afterlife in one shot.

Depends what you're fighting. Sometimes "nuke the whole group in one shot" isn't an option. I personally don't think the aoe stun powers are OP, but if I were to rate them on a scale of OPness they would slide in above alpha strikes.

pwestolemyname · June 2018

markhawkman wrote: »

sterga wrote: »

Electric Current + Bad Wiring

This one power with Manipulator is hilariously op in some situations. Electrocute a group of mooks, now they're stunned and stop attacking you.... continue electrocuting until they die.

Hmmm now this gives me an idea!

markhawkman · June 2018

spinnytop wrote: »

kamokami wrote: »

I don't see how that's any more OP than the option of just don't bother and nuke the mobs into the afterlife in one shot.

Depends what you're fighting. Sometimes "nuke the whole group in one shot" isn't an option. I personally don't think the aoe stun powers are OP, but if I were to rate them on a scale of OPness they would slide in above alpha strikes.

Especially in team content since the CCer can immobilize those annoying CC-spamming mooks in alerts. The CCer may have weak DPS, but his team mates? heheheeh….

What's the best mass Crowd Control power?

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