MentalMaden

Originally Posted by Ben_Arizona

By a "real control", I mean that it does not reduce the enemy's ability to take action on its own.

You call Stone Cages the only AoE control that will be up every group, and then you immediately talk only about using it in pairing with Stalagmites. In my eyes, this situation has Stalagmites applying the actual control element, with Stone Cages being used to minimize side-effects of Stalagmites. While Stone Cages does this very well, and I do not deny that it does this very well, I feel that Quicksand does well enough in this regard given that Stone Cages is not otherwise a very good power. If you do not feel that Quicksand minimizes the effects of Stalagmites well enough, then certainly go ahead and take Stone Cages.

(You may not think that Quicksand or Snow Storm is otherwise a very good power. This is of course your personal taste, and de gustibus non est disputandum. For my part, I find their debuffs much more useful than a little extra wander reduction on Stalagmites.)

MentalMaden, you say that "too much emphasis is placed on the flippy floppy powers". This is because the typical practice, as Local_Man describes and my experience reflects, involves alternating between Earthquake and Stalagmites as an opener control on a fast-moving team, and while flippy-floppy is a nice side-effect for Sleet it is the basis of Earthquake's control aspect. Emphasis is placed on the AOE knockdown because one of Earth's two fast-recharging controls is an AoE knockdown field. For my part, I feel too much emphasis is placed on nullifying the wandering from stun, but I at least acknowledge that someone who finds that more annoying than Quicksand can handle will be seeing it often enough that I can understand wanting to do more about it. Saying that an earth/cold puts too much emphasis on his knockdown fields is like saying that a plant controller pays too much attention to Seeds of Confusion and Carrion Creepers: it's because they're critical powers you'll be using a lot.

Edit: I should probably clarify something. I tend to see a lot of people's advice being that Stone Cages is essentially mandatory for an earth controller because otherwise the wander from Stalagmites is unmanageable. I did take the immobs on my earth/cold, but I found from personal experience that the wander was greatly mitigated by Quicksand, to the extent where I stopped bothering to use the immobilize after Stalagmites if there was a quicksand patch. Since Quicksand applies a large defense debuff, I use it very often, and eventually ended up just going with a Quicksand + Stalagmites combo instead of Cages + Stalagmites. At that point, I was using the immobilizes solely for -fly and extra damage, and the extra damage contributed was not terribly significant, even slotted for damage. I started using Snow Storm for -fly instead, and eventually respecced out of the immobs entirely. I have not missed them. I do not say that no earth controller should ever try taking them, but they are also not nearly as mandatory as they are made out to be, nor is Snow Storm as low-tier a power as people like to make it out to be.

Originally Posted by Rubberlad

After having just watched a new FB Dev video for a competitive IP that opens up discussion regarding power customization while taking some interesting digs at COH's rationale - and then seeing this? I gotta laugh and feel equally disappointed. Saying no to *anything* for "purely fictional reasons" is absolutely absurd.

You guys need to lose this chip off your shoulder fast or its going to hurt the brand later on.

Originally Posted by Reyne_Maker

I went with Ice.
Though, it's worth noting my Ill/Rad has Perma-Hasten and Perma-PA, So as PA is ridiculously good at keeping the Aggro away I've no need for mez protect.
And with a nice cone and an AoE nova popping that fast, well, how could I not??
(oh, and frozen armor takes the LotG unique)

Originally Posted by Ben_Arizona

A toggle with -fly has non-trivial value to an Earth controller, especially against certain types of enemies (Cabal, Sky Raiders), and a toggle AoE recharge debuff has value against quite a few others. The fact that movement slow will be going past the cap hardly even bears on it, in my view.

Originally Posted by Robert_B

Actually you made two sigs!

Originally Posted by all_hell

here ya go


sig pleasures

Originally Posted by Severe

haha! *points*

Originally Posted by MistressNoire

I was born in the early 80s hair bands all around

Metallica, Quiet Riot etc etc

Originally Posted by Father Xmas

Sounds more and more like a heat problem.

Originally Posted by Garielle

You actually need to be careful with blowing the machine out with compressed air. This is especially true if there is a large amount of dust in the machine. The dust being blown around can generate static electricity which can ruin components.

There really isn't a better and safer way to clean the machine out. The point is that this may actually be what lead to the problem to begin with.