Best Str/Dex Crowd Control Option

[SWCarter]

I typically play casters, and have become accustomed to having Mass Hold, BoGW, Otto's Sphere of Dancing, etc. at the ready when I need to CC a group of mobs. On my next life, though, I am planning to switch to a melee build. While I could play an Int/Wis/Cha-focused melee and still pick up BoGW, I'd like to go for a full Strength or Dexterity build, so that wouldn't be an option.

Any thoughts on what the best CC option is for a Str/Dex build would be greatly appreciated. I assume Dire Charge is still solid as it was years ago and Cower looks promising, but if there are additional options that others have found to be as effective (the larger the group, the longer the helplessness, and the lower the cooldown, the better), I'd love to hear about them.

[wolfy42]

One of my favorite epic strikes is Orchard blossom, it's in the grandmaster of flowers epic destiny. The damage itself is great (and hits all enemies around you) but the upgrade also stuns them all with DC of 20+highest ability score + stunning bonuses. This is a great AoE stun while also doing excellent damage.

That also stacks well with any other stat your using, so if pure dex or strength you can go with trip abilities for instance. You can get a freakton of em depending on the build you use, but most melee builds can get quite a few, you can get another if you use the iconic trailblazer as well. With high DC (especially if you get tactical bonuses from dex/wis/cha/int know the angels etc) the trips can keep groups of enemies (non-bosses/reapers) down almost constantly, and combined with Blossom it's very defensive.

Should be mentioned though that trailblazers AoE trip can be based on Wisdom. Favored soul also has divine might (giving a bonus to damage and DC's = 1/2 wisdom) and of course BoGW can also be based on wisdom. You get a nice amount of bonus damage etc from using a favored weapon as a favored soul as well (specially going with staves for instance), so could make a very nice melee character that can also heal and buff if that sounds fun for you.

That would give you stuns,trips and freezes all for your melee char If going trailblazer it also boosts your movement speed significantly. Go 2 monk levels/18 FvS and you still get all your spells, just miss out on the capstone, high melee damage, high max health (Even if not as much as before) and decent defenses and CC options.

Tons of other options though, but yeah in general trips/stuns are the best CC options for melee (unless your using int/wis/cha as your melee stats which are totally possible).

Pally's for instance are really good if you go Cha for hit/damage, very very tanky, and again you can get quite a few CC options pretty easy. If you go with the smite upgrades you get a bunch of AoE healing/damage as well eventually that work well with AoE CC options.

Bards can also be quite good melee, using cha to hit and damage, while still having excellent CC options (without even multiclassing at all). You still get otto's sphere, can have a high DC BoGW and I may be wrong but I think greater shout doesn't have a save currently, you can also get it through fatesinger as an sla (so have 2 casts of it if your already a bard). Sonic....blast...boom....forget...the level2 spell....is also decent Stun DC and you get that early.


Tons of options to be honest, kinda gotta say what kinda melee you want to do, as there are so many ways to build one.

[Ddealti]

One of my favorite epic strikes is Orchard blossom, it's in the grandmaster of flowers epic destiny. The damage itself is great (and hits all enemies around you) but the upgrade also stuns them all with DC of 20+highest ability score + stunning bonuses. This is a great AoE stun while also doing excellent damage.

That also stacks well with any other stat your using, so if pure dex or strength you can go with trip abilities for instance. You can get a freakton of em depending on the build you use, but most melee builds can get quite a few, you can get another if you use the iconic trailblazer as well. With high DC (especially if you get tactical bonuses from dex/wis/cha/int know the angels etc) the trips can keep groups of enemies (non-bosses/reapers) down almost constantly, and combined with Blossom it's very defensive.

Should be mentioned though that trailblazers AoE trip can be based on Wisdom. Favored soul also has divine might (giving a bonus to damage and DC's = 1/2 wisdom) and of course BoGW can also be based on wisdom. You get a nice amount of bonus damage etc from using a favored weapon as a favored soul as well (specially going with staves for instance), so could make a very nice melee character that can also heal and buff if that sounds fun for you.

That would give you stuns,trips and freezes all for your melee char If going trailblazer it also boosts your movement speed significantly. Go 2 monk levels/18 FvS and you still get all your spells, just miss out on the capstone, high melee damage, high max health (Even if not as much as before) and decent defenses and CC options.

Tons of other options though, but yeah in general trips/stuns are the best CC options for melee (unless your using int/wis/cha as your melee stats which are totally possible).

Pally's for instance are really good if you go Cha for hit/damage, very very tanky, and again you can get quite a few CC options pretty easy. If you go with the smite upgrades you get a bunch of AoE healing/damage as well eventually that work well with AoE CC options.

Bards can also be quite good melee, using cha to hit and damage, while still having excellent CC options (without even multiclassing at all). You still get otto's sphere, can have a high DC BoGW and I may be wrong but I think greater shout doesn't have a save currently, you can also get it through fatesinger as an sla (so have 2 casts of it if your already a bard). Sonic....blast...boom....forget...the level2 spell....is also decent Stun DC and you get that early.


Tons of options to be honest, kinda gotta say what kinda melee you want to do, as there are so many ways to build one.

Hi, Newbie 1st life player here confused by your trip CC comment.

I never used trip thinking I needed to spend every mouse click on Damage. So, it boggles my mind to read that trip will take down mobs. Can you elaborate on how that works?

Thanks,

[LightBear]

Hi, Newbie 1st life player here confused by your trip CC comment.

I never used trip thinking I needed to spend every mouse click on Damage. So, it boggles my mind to read that trip will take down mobs. Can you elaborate on how that works?

Thanks,

1 Drag trip/improved trip feat to your hotbar.
2 Solf or hard target a mob.
3 Hit that shortcut for your hotbar
4 Watch the dice roll
5 Start bashing on the (possibly tripped, depending if your combat tactics dc for trip is high enough) mob

[SpartanKiller13]

I typically play casters, and have become accustomed to having Mass Hold, BoGW, Otto's Sphere of Dancing, etc. at the ready when I need to CC a group of mobs. On my next life, though, I am planning to switch to a melee build. While I could play an Int/Wis/Cha-focused melee and still pick up BoGW, I'd like to go for a full Strength or Dexterity build, so that wouldn't be an option.

Any thoughts on what the best CC option is for a Str/Dex build would be greatly appreciated. I assume Dire Charge is still solid as it was years ago and Cower looks promising, but if there are additional options that others have found to be as effective (the larger the group, the longer the helplessness, and the lower the cooldown, the better), I'd love to hear about them.

Dex build can probably get higher DC's thanks to Horizon Walker's trance. Strength build sorta has to be Fighter, run an off-stat with a trance (like Wis w/Falconry or Int w/Harper) or work really hard to get DC's without a trance. With 90 mainstat and an epic strike stun you're at (20 base + 40 stat) 60, so you're looking for 40+ tactics bonus to get into the zone where I'm happy (my goals are >105 Consecration, >110 Dire Charge). 15 enhancement + 6 insightful + 3 quality = 24 from gear, 3 from LD and 6 from whatever ED you main in = 33, T3 Reaper and airship +1 gets you to 37, so you're just getting into the good range with stuff like Scion of Astral or Tactician or weird gear or class bonuses.

Full Dex with 80 Dex has 20 + 35x1.5 + 31 (the above -6 insightful) and you're already at 103 vs 97 of the above; and that's with 10 less mainstat. You can just go full Strength, but you gotta work more

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Comparison of epic strike CC options (as I see them):

• Dire Charge - the best CC IMO, but sometimes the dash is a lil unreliable; it has both a trip and a stun with separate saves which is great both for when your DC's aren't no-fail, and for mobs immune to one or the other (both scale from Stun DC's too, which is convenient). Sometimes you dash through the pack and hit nothing though, which sucks. It works better with hard targeting, and is overall pretty solid but not perfect. +2[w] and no crit bonus is sorta blah damage though, FWIW. Cooldown is 12s so it has pretty decent uptime (stun/trip I think is 4s? I remember it being longer but I can't find it).
• Consecration - the most consistent AoE CC - it always goes off exactly where you want it, and I really like it if you're part of a group because it's on-demand "guaranteed" cc. Also comes with +10% damage and AoE healing. It's really good for party play and useful soloing for the healing part too, but the "stun" part is 4s long and the cooldown is 20s which is pretty low CC uptime. Healing & damage boost lasts for 15s though, and it's often one of the highest DPS epic strikes for duration combat. Cower doesn't CC everything, but does get a few things that others don't (like undead are mostly immune to Stuns but not Cower).
• Drifting Lotus - best damage + solid CC. With +3 crit range, +3 crit multi, +5[w], and hitting 3x in an AoE it does pretty great damage. The CC is more reliable than Dire Charge since there's no charge bit, but 15s CD makes it slightly less uptime than Dire Charge in longer fights. The only reason this one isn't higher on a lot of lists is you're stuck in GMoF mantle generating Ki, and need to be on a centered build (so limited weapon choice and cloth armor). I haven't played a build that can use this in a while because of that, but I'm going to in 2ish lives. Looks really good if you can live with those caveats.
• Adrenaline - best single-target and doesn't require DC's; with 11s duration + 8s cooldown + 4s of knockdown you can keep a mob on the ground for ~14s of the first 16s of a fight. It comes with a boatload of damage, and there's no DC so it's great for lives where you don't have much by way of DC investment. Only problem is it's single-target, which is a pretty big letdown on the list. It's really good for party play where you can hit Reapers/champs/whatever isn't CC'ed after someone else throws AoE, but it's not as good for soloing most of the time.
• Sword Sings + Blade of Discord - best early epics strike often; this one's the only CC option early epics, and Sword Sings does a lot of damage cheaply. I'd try this out until 23 (if going Dire Charge) or 26 (for any of the other trees). Sword Sings has 4s CD, does a bunch of damage, and has a no-save stun on-crit while also having +2 crit range (~1/3 of them on a Falchion build). Blade of Discord gets charged up by Sword Sings, and stuns for 1s per charge (up to 3s) and does a bunch of sonic damage in a cleave. I wouldn't use these as your lategame CC though
• Throw the Boom - honorable mention: no-fail AoE stun for 4s every 20s; but requires you to be using a shield which is generally not meta for melees. You can swap to throw but ew.

As far as heroic stuff, depends a lot on what class you want to run lol. Dex-based I found a lot of luck with Sweeping Strikes from Thief-Acrobat. Str-based Savage Roar from Nature's Protector is pretty great (also a lot of damage). Ghost Wolf Pack was really good CC as well (no save AOE confusion which is ~a stun) but I probably wouldn't recommend a Wolf build for your foray into melee

[SpartanKiller13]

Hi, Newbie 1st life player here confused by your trip CC comment.

I never used trip thinking I needed to spend every mouse click on Damage. So, it boggles my mind to read that trip will take down mobs. Can you elaborate on how that works?

Thanks,

Tripped mobs don't hit back = more time to kill them while they're not killing you. Especially true of AoE stuff where you can stun a whole pack for 4s or something. Still, single-target stuff is very good for hitting priority targets, like kobold shamans who can lightning bolt you for 70 damage at level 3. Dead players are generally really bad at putting DPS out.

Also a lot of CC options make enemies helpless (wiki link) which gives you 50% bonus damage at a minimum (gear/enhancements/epic destiny stuff often add more as well). So even if you wasted one swing to CC a mob you'd be ahead in damage in only 3 swings after that like my last life I had +121% helpless damage, so losing one hit to CC a mob would be a net gain on the 2nd swing.

Also Trip does a basic attack so you ~don't even lose damage using it instead of a swing give it a try! Worst case you lose very little and don't bother again, but more likely you have more options for your early heroics at least

[droid327]

If you really want to make tactical CCs a main focus of your melee build then its worth mentioning the LD+FotW combo too...

FotW T4 gives you Imp Trip (which otherwise requires some gross prereqs), LD T5 makes Imp Trips also apply Helpless for bonus damage, and then FotW makes Imp Trip a 360 AOE at 32. So that gives you both Dire Charge on a 12s CD and Imp Trip on a 10s CD that are AOE trip+stuns

Of course that combo only become relevant very late in the game, so if you're just going to TR at 30, that wont help much. And Trip is a STR DC so it wont help on a DEX char.

[ChaosBuddha]

gold dagger + chains

[FuzzyDuck81]

If you really want to make tactical CCs a main focus of your melee build then its worth mentioning the LD+FotW combo too...

FotW T4 gives you Imp Trip (which otherwise requires some gross prereqs), LD T5 makes Imp Trips also apply Helpless for bonus damage, and then FotW makes Imp Trip a 360 AOE at 32. So that gives you both Dire Charge on a 12s CD and Imp Trip on a 10s CD that are AOE trip+stuns

Of course that combo only become relevant very late in the game, so if you're just going to TR at 30, that wont help much. And Trip is a STR DC so it wont help on a DEX char.

I've got a 2hf pure fighter that uses LD as main destiny with secondary in crusader & that works well, with consecration/cower & the helpless from improved trip, though fighter has the feats to spare for tactical DCs.

gold dagger + chains

This is a surprsingly effective little combo Gotta love that "on crit" rather than just "a chance", especially when chains give the threat boost.

I'd like to throw in a shout-out to the vastly underappreciated sap feat, especially on a 2hf build, as while it's just a daze not a proper stun & gets broken easily, it has no save & will at the very least interrupt enemies, great to just hit it as you run through a group to get the troublesome caster at the back.

Also, while shields aren't necessarily the highest dps option, many bucklers feature the guardbreaking enhancement, that gives a no-save daze when you crit with your mainhand attack. Great for swashbucklers in particular. Combine with the gold dagger on a shadarkai as mentioned above for even more funtimes, works very well with shadowdancer or fatesinger. As a bard, you'll also still have some casting & song-based CC options too.

[Coffey]

A Strength Bear Druid has a pretty good AOE CC.

[Coffey]

I'd like to throw in a shout-out to the vastly underappreciated sap feat, especially on a 2hf build, as while it's just a daze not a proper stun & gets broken easily, it has no save & will at the very least interrupt enemies, great to just hit it as you run through a group to get the troublesome caster at the back.

I use this on my THF STR Cleric and it works great to even the odds a bit.

[Coffey]

A Strength Ranger with DOD is great CC.

[Tilomere]

Both the US shield throw and Fatesinger greatest shout have no save, so just rotate with dire charge for AoE permastun, with some self-healing.

[droid327]

Both the US shield throw and Fatesinger greatest shout have no save, so just rotate with dire charge for AoE permastun, with some self-healing.

You sure that's still true?

Shouts had no save until the last patch, where they fixed it. Its glaringly obvious on my EK/PM Inqui now that its not nearly as reliable as it was before. I would assume Greatest Shout is working on the same mechanic.

[SWCarter]

Thanks for all the feedback, everyone. This has been super helpful as I plan my next life.

Greatest Shout sounds intriguing since it scales off the highest ability score (including Str/Dex) and has a 6-second cooldown, but does it cause helplessness? The wiki indicates that it no longer does since Update 56.