Rifle or Brawling? Which Would You Consider Better For A Controller?

Title Says It All

I like Duel Pistols myself but opt for ranges for controlling. It's really a matter of taste.

Brawling... The power regen/ supercharge buildup is great to have for any troll. Rifle/DP is more fun in lower tier content, but I can't get with that constant rolling in and out of melee range, especially with DP.

Tap - Hold Triangle - Best Brawl WM regen rotation.. so far.. as well pistols are good too.. depends on your playstyle.

I'm always within range with DP. No need to roll as long as you know how to use it but as I said, it's all a matter of taste.

It's not that I'm out of range, it's that I'm too close for comfort sometimes with em. I got the DP artifact in Necro once for the whole run and realized they're not for me. The regen on them is good if you can deal with the combos though.

Are talking Weapon Mastery, or no?

The ideal controller weapon would be one that raises your hit counter the fastest. This will generate more power for you (especially with your high Vitalization) as well as Super Charge so you can use your ultimate abilities more often.

The weapons I've found to be the absolute best are:

Pre-WM.....
Handblasters - Has a lower regen threshold than most weapons (meaning it gets its yellow and orange colored hit counter with less hits), and Pulse Beam adds a ridiculous number of hits really fast.
Rifle - Just holding Lunge hits the target several times, and once you get too close you can just use Flip Burst to recover your distance. Vulnerable to Blocks
Pistols - Comboing Slip Shot into Jump Shot is a pretty good combo generator, and you can clip Sweep Shot, too if you'd like. Vulnerable to Blocks. You can use Full Auto to avoid the Block counters, but the combo building is slower by almost 50%.
2-Handed - If you want to be a melee troll for whatever reason, Doom Spin is the absolute best pre-WM move for recovering power. THE. BEST. Vulnerable to Blocks.
Martial Arts - Shuriken Storm hits something like 6 times. If you go this route, don't take Enhanced Shuriken; it'll speed up your combo generating.
Bow - Flurry Shot is just okay. You could also opt for Arrow Storm.

Post-WM.....
Brawling - The absolute lowest thresholds in the game (6, 11, and 21) and can combo into Shuriken Storn for almost immediately 6-7 hits in pretty much a second. Use it twice in a row to get to a level 2 regen, or 3-4 times to get to the maximum level of regen. There is no other weapon that compares to this weapon at all.
2-Handed - 2nd lowest regen thresholds (something like 7, 12, and 24) and can combo into Arrow Storm. The overall attack is a bit slower that Brawling, and combined with a slightly slower regen thresholds, the speed of this weapon is just noticeably slower than Brawling.
Dual Wield - Has a really quick combo into Flurry Shot, but since it has regular sized regen thresholds, it's not all that amazing.
Handblaster, Rifle, Bow, and Pistols can all be used as if they didn't have WM combos, but you'll probably find you won't use the WM combos much if you're trying to get your hit counter up, possibly with the exception of Pistols, or Bow's combo into Full Auto (though Arrow Storm would still be the faster combo generator)

Assuming you're talking about WM combos, the ideal weapon for trolls is the one with the quickest combo i.e. Brawling (and possibly staff....haven't played it but it could be pretty fast). You just keep doing Tap range, Hold range, and as soon as you need to spam the instant power move just do the WM combo once, spam, combo again spam.

Also remember aside from building power building super charge is essential for trolls. The Tap Range, Hold Range repetition can help you build it with its multiple hits.


Rifle WM is imho is the absolute worst for support roles that prefer range attacks. Timing the full Auto Combo is an absolute nightmare and the other range WM combo works only half the time depending on your distance from your target.

Brawlers with WM, hands down the best power/supercharge regen

Brawling WM, have the fastest wm combo in game, and u can spam your powers very quick.

I´d actually say Rifle because Controllers can´t usually fare too well in close quarters (unless you are popping shields, but that´s power that could go to recharges, debuffs and PoTs). As a Controller, I find myself at my best when I´m picking targets at range, one at a time, trying to CC dangerous enemies, keeping them off my teammates´backs... Having range also gives you a better overview of what´s happening in the screen. And knowing whats going on in the battlefield is a huge part of the Controller role.

Also, IMO it regens faster than Brawling, so...

i prefer no weapon HL trolling personally

Use whatever you like..whatever feels right and instinctive...whatever flaws real or imagined your choice has will be more than compensated by your ability to constantly mount a fluid interactive attack that negates your opponents responses. Winning is the goal...not weapon choice.

Brawling tap hold or 1H hold hold are by far the best. Both are very fast.
Brawling gives u the best power regen but low power cost reduction. (5%)
1H gives u 14% power cost reduction and really good damage.

Other weapons u could try are Staff, DW, 2H.

I didn`t say Brawling is the best WM, just is the fastest combo u can get, tap and hold. Name a WM that is so fast?
Also i am focusing to speed up the instant, i dont carre about power cost. its a small difference of power cost.
Just think like that: you have a small vita in a raid with another troll that have a large amount of vita and ofcourse he POT, you need to refull him fast with power. Same think happen into an alert, you need to refull fast the dps, tank, heal with power.

Brawler for me!



IA ARMY

Brawling is by far the fastest WM combo to use with recharge. As well as the most hits on your hit counter per combo. There are many many widely varying opinions here as you see. With brawling I can get an 8 man raid from crisis to stable power much faster than other weapons, but people might consider just always spamming the tap/hold triangle quite boring. Honestly I like to use brawling in the early stages of DLC when it's somewhat challenging, then after it's all easy I'll switch to a more fun weapon. Basically Brawling is for business, all the rest for fun.

Trolls who use Brawling do not use it in close quarters, we use the 2 ranged WM combos into Martial Arts.

I did say Brawling was by far the best. Along with 1H. I gave reasons for both. I don't see ur point. And please don't waste time trying to teach me something about trolling.

Still not as many hits, speed or versatility overall than with Rifle.