MaxLongstreet

Maybe I'm wrong because I tend to solo more than group, but my experience is that most players are reasonably aware that you don't need any one archetype to have a successful team - you get the occasional exception who sticks in your memory, but most of the people I've teamed with have figured this out, IMO.

I'm perverse; I relish the exceptions, since when you have a team leader who is moaning for a healer and no one else is contradicting them, there's a strong possibility you're joining what looks to be a really bad PUG. And really bad PUGs tend to be very entertaining for me.

I don't get SS on an Earth/Storm. I often bash SS as mediocre; what I really mean to say is that it's often mediocre for controllers generally, and earth controllers in particular (I like it just fine on my Corruptor).

The point is this - a controller's job is to control stuff, and an earth controller controls groups better than anything, so why do you need SS on stuff that's held/stunned/knocked down etc? At that kind of endurance usage, it tends to be an unaffordable luxury, IMO.

Quicksand is different because it gives the defense debuff and it doesn't cost continuous endurance - I'd take that instead in a heartbeat.

How can you do an environmental concept without Plant powers?!?!

My best friend's 'Dirty Hippie' toon is a Plant/Storm who is taking Earth as an APP.

Go with the man-eating plants!

Stryker, I hear you about simply tweaking a pre-existing build.

Hurricane's clearly a power that people have a huge range of opinions about - to some people, it's essential; to others, useless.

Hurricane is a good of example of why my recommendation to Dave is to read everyone's advice, but rather than simply taking any one build as 'best', figure out where the advice is coming from and really think for yourself about whether you want a power or not and how you should should slot it.

Stay flexible - I often change my mind on slotting as I develop a toon based on liking or not liking certain powers more or less than I thought I would.

Snowstorm? Again, your mileage may vary. I find it meh - useful in certain circumstances, but usually not worth the endurance drain, and thus the the power slot. But others love it, so read up for yourself and make an informed choice.

I don't mean to offend Stryker in any way, but I wouldn't use his build. I would instead listen to Local Man's advice about what powers to take at what level and then find your own slotting.

I find Stryker's build to be a little low on the damage and high on things you don't really need, such as all the defense debuff in freezing rain, and immobilize in Roots.

Also puzzling to me is a build that takes Snowstorm at 4, which becomes non-essential once you have Seeds, while putting off a travel power until 22 and Hurricane until 30.

For APPs, Fire is fine, but I would be six slotting Fireball and getting the excellent single target attack, which will finally give you that single target damage, rather than doing things like six-slotting consume.

All just my opinion of course!

Dave, I think it would help if you gave a few more specifics about what how you intend to play a character - teams, solo or both, etc. - so people could offer a build that's in line with what you're looking for.

I think the thing we can all agree in is that either endurance drain should get a really big bump in this set, or it shouldn't be much of a factor at all in the set - don't make token endurance drain a reason to make other things weaker. I'd be happy with either of the two plans, as long as they don't go the token endurance drain route.

Buyer beware on some of the build advice you've taken here.

Don't get me wrong - everyone here is pretty smart, and everyone wants to help, but you didn't indicate whether you want to solo or team primarily. If you're going to be teaming pretty much all the time, then taking ketch's suggestion to get out of the damage slotting is fine.

If, on the other hand, you're going to be soloing, this build looks ugly for damage at the lower levels, particularly pre-Creepers. I understand that with Seeds, you're not going to need to do tons of damage, but you will need to do some, and there ain't much here. Killing that last guy is going to take a LONG time if you're simply hitting unenhanced strangler over and over again. You've got Roots and Strangler, with no damage slots and nothing else to do harm with. In a solo Plant/Storm I think Roots is a serious damage power - it's a fast recharging AoE that makes it's own containment. You'll want to spam it for damage, so some damage slotting is important, at least eventually. You could also take entangle and respec out of it, or slot a bit for damage in Strangler - it all depends on your play style.

I'm also not a big fan of defense debuffs in Freezing Rain in the build you're doing. If you want to go the defense debuff route, you don't need the standard accuracy slotting that you've done. Either bag the defense debuff route or cut back on the accuracy a bit, IMO.

Hey, if you're a team player consistently, ignore me about the damage, but if you're a soloer, figure out a damage plan that you can live with, or at least experiment with Seeds and your other powers to see if some damage slotting would help.

I wanted to get a quick plug in for my favorite, mind/cold or mind/storm. Lots of control, lots of options, lots of chaos, different enemies all play very differently.

Nova, I haven't written a guide, but I have experience with an A/TA Corruptor. It's a challenging class to play - Trick Arrow isn't a very powerful set for Corruptors - but I can offer a few pieces of advice, if you're soloing.

One is to six-slot ice arrow and max hold duration and recharge, and get some good accuracy as well, to have a half decent hold. Mitigation can be a problem for A/TA, and it really helps to be able to take a foe out of the fight. For that reason, you might want to do the same with Stunning Shot when it becomes available for you.

Another general rule that helps is to try to fight enemies that specialize in melee, so you can keep them all at range with Glue Arrow. Warriors are a good enemy choice in your 20s. Stuff that isn't stopped by Glue Arrow, like a lot of Tsoo, can be very annoying. As you've probably already found out, kiting/Glue arrow helps. Sometimes I fight with SS onto make kiting easier, though it's tough on the endurance. Sometimes if you circle glue patches as you shoot, stuff runs helplessly back and forth in the glue patch rather than attacking. Explosive arrow can also be part of your kite/hold/stun/slow routine, as the aoe knockback can be very helpful.

Sorry if this is a bit basic - you've probably discovered all of this - good luck to you, and remember, though it will never be an uber build, it will get easier with RoA/OSA down the road!

One archer I would strongly recommend AGAINST ever playing if one cares in the slightest about a toon's relative power is an A/TA Corruptor. They just stink. It's a shame, because I like the look and feel of the powers a lot, but I can't come close to pulling my own weight in teams. Playing a TA Corruptor is basically like playing a Blaster with a huge, permanent, damage debuff. TA values are quite poor on a Corruptor, and you don't make up for it in damage - in fact, your RoA comes in at Defender values, for god knows what reason.

It's been speculated on the larger TA thread that a possible reason that the set doesn't get a badly needed buff is the fear of making it too strong for controllers, but even there it's not overpowered or anything - it's just more reasonable because of the far better hold times that Controllers get. It's simply pathetic that it's a secondary for controllers, and yet they get much longer hold times for things like Ice Arrow and EMP Arrow than Defenders do in a primary. And it's not even that great for Controllers! For Corruptors? Miniscule debuffs, holds that should be measured in miliseconds - uggghhhh.

For the first respec trial, Terra Volta, Fire Tanks are the bomb since Sky Raiders just do fire and lethal.

It makes me nostalgiac for the old, pre burn nerf days, when my Fire Tank could solo the whole TF....mmmm...burn!!

Well, we've got a huge thread about the the worst; why not the best? Probably this thread has been done before (I'm too lazy to check), but what do folks think are the out and out sickest powers currently available, and what powers do you love to play the most? I'll throw a few of the powers I'm most impressed with:

-- Seeds of Confusion

-- Freezing Rain/Sleet

-- Phantom Army

-- Fearsome Stare

-- Shield Charge

I must really suck, because I love mass confusion. I won't turn down a buff to it, though!

I like your build a lot - a good friend of mine is starting out a Plant/Storm and I may send this to him. I also think Cold is an excellent choice as an APP for pouring out the AoE damage.

I can't see much I'd really change - I'd probably take one less LotG in Frozen Armor so that I could cram a recharge IO into Ice Storm, but that's quibbling. If single target, boss damage proves to be a big headache you could also take ice's ST attack towards the end, but you probably don't need it.

Yeah, EMP Arrow is one of the better powers in the game, not the worst - if you just looked and saw that it was an AoE hold at 60 seconds longer than most AoE holds, you'd miss its great features:

-- Total area affected is over double that of other AoE holds
-- Duration is twice as long as other AoE holds
-- Power doesn't suffer the accuracy penalty of other AoE holds
-- Damage inflicted on machines

The second is probably most important - properly enhanced, it gives you time to basically make a sandwich before it wears off. It's probably also the second best power in TA after OSA (a bit like saying you're the second happiest person in hell, but still).

I would think an uber controlling toon would be fun as PUG only - some ice or earth controller who would need to use all their myriad AoE abilities to keep a team alive.

My mistake - my math error was identical to the damage enhancement in a power. For one wild moment, I dared to hope...