First, my overall build goal is to have fun! With Water/Time, this is built on the following:
- I want to stay vertical and not mezzed, which translates to a) softcap Def Range, b) softcap S/L Res, c) Clarion and Blessing of the Zephyr's KB Prot.
- I want to keep the enemies from affecting anyone, which means continuous mez and debuff.
- I want to protect my team and Water Golem, which means buffing myself and them.
- I want to defeat and facilitate others defeating enemies without taking forever, which means debuffing and damaging them.
While Water/Time provides a lot of this out of the box, my power selections and enhancement choices further this. Also, this build is designed as a leveling build and for exemping, and not to need alternate builds for those. Power by power, this means:
- Suffocate: a ST Hold from level 1 which does damage and -Def? Yes, please. However, it has a recharge which is so quick that it's not the most useful for procs, but 6-slotting Thunderstrike is inexpensive and supports an overall goal of softcap Def to Range.
- Time Crawl: a must-have power, because it must be chosen. Not as useful when compared to other powers while leveling, however it gives a greater impact to Slowed Response, and so comes into greater usefulness when fighting bosses and stronger opponents later. Its recharge is slow enough to take advantage of procs, however it doesn't have very many proc choices. Impeded Swiftness %Smash and Superior Winter Storm Rech/%Cold gives it the potential to do more damage than Suffocate or Deluge. In addition to procs, I put a couple of IOs which help primarily with Acc and also Endurance management.
- Deluge: a ST dmg which does KD. Bread-and-butter stuff while leveling, especially during the early levels. Like Suffocate, Deluge has a recharge which is so quick, it's not the most useful for procs, but 6-slotting Thunderstrike is inexpensive and supports and overall goal of softcap Def to Range.
- Fly: a very useful single-slot travel power. Fluixic doesn't have a concept which calls for anything else, so Fly it is. Since KB is one of the early-encountered frequent mezzes, Blessing of the Zephyr's KB Prot is great here.
- Geyser Burst: At the tender level of 6, Water primes itself to become an AoE monster, and Gesyer Burst is the 2nd of 3 powers (even though the 1st available) which make this happen. It is also the lynchpin of most Fluixic's AoE attacks. If you're teaming with Fluixic and see the geysers, that's the place we're I'll be for a bit. For slotting, Geyser Burst's default recharge is slow enough to make sense for procs, however, most of the procs I would put here make better sense elsewhere. Recharge is a secondary IO goal of this build, so 5-slotting Positron's Blast goes towards that. Also including Superior Witchcraft %-Res has gone a fair way towards quicker defeats of not just single bosses, but entire spawns.
- Turbulent Aura: I've said it before, and I'll say it again: Turbulent Aura is the lynchpin of Water Control, and the largest differentiator between Water Control and Water Blast. An AoE Toggle which causes practically-continuous KD, along with damage, along with the chance to heal? YES PLEASE. This is the power which allows for Water Control to be in melee, and to be tanky. This is the 1st of 3 powers which make Water Control and AoE monster. Now it's a toggle, so it doesn't have the best proc chances, but that's why Water isn't just an AoE monster, but in addition creates a desire to have more and more enemies close by. The KB allows slotting Force Feedback %Rech; the heal allows slotting Theft of Essence %End, which just takes the awesome of this power to stupendous!
- Temporal Mending: oh, a PBAoE heal which affects self, pet and teammates. This is a primary reason why, as iconic as Water/Storm is, Water/Time is better for soloing and maxxing notoriety. I know I'll catch some heat for saying this, but this is my post, and this is my viewpoint, and this is true. I have overslotted Temporal Mending for Heal, and I don't use it often, which means I don't get the benefit of the Numina's Convalescence proc very often, however this does help with softcap Def to Range. There may be a future iteration where I change this, but not now.
- Riptide: this is the 3rd of 3 powers which makes Water Control an AoE monster, and its use is more subtle than the other two. In fact, some might consider skipping it. However, it provides a new mechanic introduced with Water Control, that of Forced Movement. This power overrides enemy's movement, and forces them to move to the center of Riptide. So here's the setup: run into the middle of a spawn, cast Riptide, cast Geyser Burst, then do whatever else. Turbulent Aura will trip up a few, Riptide will drawn them in, and then Geyser Burst begins the show. Note that Riptide's Force Movement will even affect AVs/GMs (hehehehehehe), which... can be awesome, and... can be trouble during certain league events where the facing of AVs matter, so you will want to learn the few times not to use it. My slotting for Riptide is for recharge, along with a KD proc (yes, more KD please) and a -Res proc.
- Time's Juncture: Layer this with Turbulent Aura to cause the enemies which are flopping like fish to also suffer -To Hit, -Damage, and -Speed. Yeah, not much is escaping, nor able to hurt anyone. There aren't any standout procs to put here that I haven't put elsewhere, so a single slot of -ToHit/End is fine.
- Hasten: did I mention a secondary build goal was recharge? Yes, twice above. But why? Geyser Burst has a base recharge of 90 seconds. Most double-spawns I fight (even at +4/x8) are gone within 30 seconds. I don't want to wait another minute to use Geyser Burst again. With all the recharge-reduction IO set bonuses and powers I have, my Geyser Burst's recharge is often 31.65 seconds. Sometimes it's faster (Hello Force Feedback %Rech), and sometimes slower (my Hasten isn't quite perma'd, and Chrono Shift doesn't recharge fast enough to apply its +Rech all the time), but it's close enough to work.
- Assault: 15% damage buff for my pets, teammates, and myself? Sure.
- Tactics: Alright, I don't have a snipe, but 10% ToHit and Perception bonus/resistance for the my pets, teammates and myself is great. In fact, I regard -Perception like I would any other debuff or mez: I hate it. I hate it so much that my sole enchancement in this is Rectified Reticle: Increased Perception, which Night Widows hate.
- Boxing: prereq power for Tough, and allows me to spend slots elsewhere.
- Time Stop: alright, this is the controversial power which I used to have little regard for, until this version of Fluixic's build, because procs! Three procs here: Ghost Widow's Embrace %Psi dmg, Superior Will of the Controller %Psi dmg, and Unbreakable Constraint %Smash dmg. This means Time Stop usually does more damage than either Suffocate or Deluge. My global recharge (remember that being a secondary goal of my build) is low enough that Time Stop is part of my regular rotation now, with a higher priority than Suffocate! (Oh, and Time Stop does pretty good -Regen and -Heal, so yeah.)
- Drowning Pool: AoE Hold with a long recharge. I tried to proc this, but I couldn't get its recharge down to ~30s, so I dropped that idea and instead let its primary slotting be for softcap Def Range. Even so, about every other fight, or when I need to hold groups both near and far, I have this power available, and its duration is a sweet 33.9s. Notice that: the duration is around how long it takes for Geyser Burst to recharge, and around how long it takes for me to defeat most +4/x8 double spawns. Amazing how all that timing comes together...
- Farsight: perma 14.79 Def for my pet, my teammates and myself, along with +10% To Hit and more Perception bonus/resistance? YES. Again, I don't have a snipe. But I bet that blasters love being near me with this and Tactics. If all they do is bring Tactics too, they have instasnipe. The Shield Wall IO is to help with my S/L Res, and while an expensive IO, helps me expand my other IO possibilities to allow more proccing.
- Tough: all about that S/L Res, with an IO to help with HP and another (expensive) IO to help with softcap Def Range.
- Water Golem: my Scraptroller. Not a mini-me, because he scraps while I tank. Blood Mandate slotting is for softcap Def Range.
- Power Sink: alright, here's Water Control's dirty secret, as least the way I play it with so much reharge: IT SUCKS END! Not as bad as Storm does, but still. In fact, this latest build uses more end than my first-posted build in this thread. My battles are in melee already, so Power Sink is an easy way to refill my blue bar, and I do make semi-regular use of it now. The slotting in this power is for recharge primarily, and EndMod secondarily. The set bonues are for HP and Recovery, which I consider more useful than Performance Shifter's Movement Speed and HP, and the power gives plenty of End by itself: no need for Performance Shifter's %End proc.
- Chrono Shift: a longer term green and blue buff for all of us. My slotting focuses on recovery at the expense of green: I can always pop Temporal Mending for all every few seconds, and have nothing comparable for green.
- Charged Armor: all about that S/L Res, and in the same Patron Power Pool as Power Sink. Slotting is for Res, with the Steadfast Protection: Resistance/+Def for softcap Def Range.
- Temporal Selection: more green for my pet, or another teammate. A convenient place to slot the Preventive Medicine Absorb Proc for myself.
- Slowed Response: Before this build, I would only hit Time Crawl then Slowed Response every so often while fighting EBs and harder targets. Now, with the damage procs in Time Crawl and Witchcraft -Res in Geyser Burst, Slowed Response is part of my regular rotation, and has an impact on the time to clear all enemies.
- Maneuvers: more Def for my pets, teammates, and me. Sure.
- Slotting in Health is primarily for End, secondarily for Health and Regen.
- Slotting in Stamina is all about that End, with a set bonus for HP.
- I did slot Celerity +Stealth in Sprint because it allows me to get closer to enemies before they're notified, and be more choosy with which side spawns I engage.
Incarnates:
- Alpha: Intuition Radial: Yeah, let's extend our Hold durations (Time Stop, Suffocate and Drowning Pool), Defense Debuffs (Slowed Response, Suffocate, Drowning Pool, increase our Range (for controlling both near and far), ToHit Debuffs (Time's Juncture), Damage (most everything), and Slow Movement (Time Crawl, Deluge, Geyser Burst).
- Destiny: Clarion Core: mez prot pure and simple. I have plenty of characters which use other methods for this, however 1) I'm not a Blaster, so no Defiance, 2) I'm not a Dominator, so no Domination, 3) I'm not a Guardian nor a melee AT, so no mez prot toggles, 4) my End usage is high, so I didn't want Rune of Protection, and 5) my End usage is high, so I wanted Mu Mastery's Power Sink over Psi Mastery's Indominatible Will and supporting IOs/powers.
- Hybrid: Support Core > Control. Control Radial offers nothing to me. Control Core only affects my holds, which are already plenty strong. Yeah it adds damage, but that would only normally affect my ST holds. Support helps my pet, my teammates and myself in a lot of small ways (including damage), plus it helps my blue bar all the time.
- Interface: Degenerative Core: -HP debuff please.
- Judgement: Ion. Kinda goes with the electrical theme from Mu Mastery, and is a great way to pull in a side spawn.
- Lore: Polar Lights: more AoE for the AoE monster!
I'm not going into the proc math here: Redlynne was gracious enough to give the formulas directly in this thread above ^^^
(THANK YOU REDLYNNE!), however when I ran the formulas with the various powers and PPMs in a workbook, I found these points:
- Drowning Pool's recharge is so long that proccing it is less useful than some other powers. All the procs placed in it would have a 90% chance to proc on each enemy during each activation, but the procs were better-placed in powers which had a faster recharge and still have a 90% chance to proc.
- Suffocate's and Deluge's recharge is too short for them to have decent proc chances, even if no recharge was slotted.
- The recharge and procsibilities (there's your new word for today) were best in Time Stop, Geyser Burst, and Slowed Response, then 2nd-best in Time Crawl and Turbulent Aura (low base proc chance, but bathing in enemies means more chances to proc). Since my focus was on improving ST damage, my procs went mostly to Time Stop, and next to Time Crawl.
So, my normal way to start a battle:
- Run in to get Turbulent Aura affecting enemies (KD, damage), and helping me (Heal, End, Rech). My Def, Res and Clarion keep me safe. My Water Golem follows and starts doing his thing.
- Place Riptide at my feet: %KD on some, %-Res on some, Damage and Forced Movement on all.
- Place Geyser Burst at my feet: KU, -Speed, Damage, and %-Res.
- Time Crawl on the biggest bad I have targeted near me. -Speed, -Rech, -Regen, and IO procs for damage. Slowed Response and Time Stop will also enjoy greater effects on that enemy
- Slowed Response on the same enemy: AoE -Def, -Res (greater impact on the targeted enemy).
- If Drowning Pool is up and doesn't need to be be saved for a harder spawn, cast it near me and watch the enemies get caught in electrical bubbles while their Def is debuffed even further.
...by the way, the DoTs from Turbulent Aura, Riptide and Geyser Burst are still flowing, and the enemies are now flopping like fish (Drowning Pool has no -KB), meaning my pet and I are fine.
After I start the battle, then I'll focus on the hardest targets, casting Time Crawl every so often, and the following as soon as they're up, in this priority order:
- Slowed Response.
- Time Stop: remember, procs more damage than Deluge (even though the procs are 90% rather than 100%) and benefits from Time Crawl.
- Suffocate: yeah, that enemy is held solid.
- Deluge: this happens only occasionally, since often higher-priority powers are available.
Now, if there is a second spawn nearby and I want them to join in the bounce party, after starting the battle and before focusing on the primary spawn's hard target(s), I'll cast Deluge on a second spawn's hardest target, which helps notify the entire spawn... they'll join the bouncing soon enough.
Before I did this build, I felt mostly on the sidelines during single GM/AV fights. Sure I could always debuff with Time Crawl, Slowed Response and Time Stop, along with debuff and a little damage from Suffocate and Deluge. I could even hold some AVs/GMs at times with Time Stop and Suffocate. Also, unless facing mattered, I could let my Water Golem do his scraptroller things. None of that has changed, however the additional damage (via procs) just feels better.