Nightchill_EU

However not impressed by Water Blast overall performance in term of ST damage or side utility, I was really happy with the heal part. You can fix endurance at somepoint, you cannot always fix hp loss. If it was recovery I would probably had kicked it out my build after I got Transferance for exemple, but the heal really is usefull, even with other ways to heal yourself and of course even more for those without healing tools.

DA is the best.
FA is the best for damage.
Elec is the best for TW.

It doesnt mean TA/Elec will be better than TW/DA or TW/FA tho. I rolled all 3 of them, only DA made it to 50, FA and Elec to 42 and 43 but still were very strong and fun to play.

I think I was misunderstood on the comparison with empathy. I didnt said Empathy was better, I said that due to the way NA works, through regens and HoT, the feelling of team contribution is lower.

By the way I think as a solo MM you can have a better idea of the impact of NA healing and overall increasing of team survival than on a controller in an 8man team. I mean, if I strike Seeds, stuff wont hit back anyways and I am widely not the only factor of team survival.

Well Pref Shifter proc is cheapish, Panacea is not. I mean, I'm rich! Well rich enough not to care about throwing 1bill in a toon just to test the set. But buying Panacea proc just for leveling knowing any endurance issue for my team are gone whenever I get perma Overgrowth... I mean even 2x4 Basilic Gaze, 3x LotG and Doctored Would x5 everywhere you can throw it put Overgrowth at like 80sec recharge. And thats about 500M top and give SO much more overall than Panacea.

Now of course you get Spores at 18 and Overgrowth at 38... and you can sell Panacea later on.

I played yesterday a freshly 50 Plant/NA Troller and wanted to share some feedback on the set for those who would like to play it.

As a disclaimer: I didnt play the toon before 50, I used my /FA Brute to powerlevel him on my brother's account. I had to farm some tickets/prestige anyways so it was an occasion. I know I will be bashed all over the place to not go to the standart xp procedure but I really dont wanna enter this argument. I wanted to have an overall feeling of NA at 50 and the thread is just for power feedback.


The build I used was standart Plant control minus Vines and took ALL the NA powers. Pools were tough/weave, maneuvre, cbt jumping, hasten, no travel. Earth as epic pool (Fissure/Armor/Embrace).
I build for:
1- Recharge (nearly perma overgrowth)
2- S/L to cap (not incarnate cap)
3- hitpoints/regen/healing



Powers:
- Corrosive Enzimes:
This power isnt really great. The -res portion is always nice to have but numbers arent amazing for a ST debuff. The -dmg is pretty worthless since onely a small portion will affect big targets, again, if it was AoE it could have been good. It also doesnt take any IO sets.
Now you have to take it on a non defender but I wish I could skip.


- Regrowth:
If you have to compare to other AoE heals Regrowth doesnt really shine. Even with x5 Bloom. Tho you still have to take it a pretty much cast it on cooldown to keep Blooms on you teamates. Even if the power itself is not amazing its on of the bricks of NA's wall of team regeneration.


- Wild Growth:
Wild Growth can be perma "quite" fast.
I tend to consider +res is generally more usefull because more rare on a team than +def. A lot of people are also def caped, or nearly but have a wide margin before hitting resistance cap.
As for regen 100% itself isnt that good. But its "another 100%" so it contribute to NA's goal. Clearly not skippable.


- Spore Cloud:
Probably the best power in the set. Its basically Darkest Night with -regen. Very very good power.


- Lifegiving Spore:
I would love to say that this power contribute to the whole team regeneration thing and that the endurance isnt meaningless. But seriously, this power is crap.
It tics every 3 seconds for a ridiculous amound of health and endurance. Even if it was teamwide, huge range and passive it would still be skippable but ground targeted toggle? Seriously.
Its kina sad tho, it looks pretty...


- Wild Bastion:
So this is some kind of "oh ****" team heal. I'm not calling it "oh ****" because it has a good effect but just because it has a long recharge... The absorb is fine the HoT is kina weak. Half the recharge would make it a reliable team heal but 240s base recharge is just too long for the impact it has.


- Rebirth:
At first I was existed because I hate rezes. I thought it was great design to have a power that rezes dead allies but actually works as a buff/heal on living targets. Sadly the effect on living target is complete junk for a single target heal and hardly worth casting.
So hey, its a rez, some people like rezes.


- Entangling Aura:
HUGE endo cost (but NA doesnt care about endurance) for very short duration, low magnitude, small radius AoE hold. It "tics" decently fast and the effect is quite noticable on non-protected minions when you sit in the middle of a pack.
I dont really see the point of the power in the global design of NA set, since (more on that later) it kind of forces you to be far behind your teamates. If I wanted NA on a Fire or Ice Controller I would probably love this power but for anything else its very skippable.


- Overgrowth:
Overgrowth can be perma (should be imo because you WANT to rely on the endurance reduction). Its a good power. Now it also has downsides.
1- The damage part is always good to take. 66% damage its really something important.
2- The endurance reduction is very large. It means Perma Overgrowth NA hero (and everyone in the team!) completely ignores the blue bar. BUT when you will reach PermaOvergrowth; most of the players you will play with already have sustainable builds.
In a level 50 fully IOd team, endurance is probably the least wanted value.
Now it is true that endurance problems are very important at lower levels. But Overgrowth will only be up half of the time before you build heavily for global recharge, its nothing compared to whan SB/Transferance or Conduit of Pain can do.

Oh wait, you grow a ******* FOREST when you cast it!





Synergy with Plant Control:
Besides obvious concept reasons and because Carion Creepers+Lifegiving Spores looks like my granfather's garden, the synergy with Plant isnt very good.
The key power in Plant is Seeds of Confusion and require to stand quite close to the packs in order to cover the maximum surface. The key power in NA (not the best power, the cornerstone) is Regrowth and requires to stand behind your teamates in order to affect most of them. Now if you only have melees in you team its pretty much the same positionning, but most of the time you dont. And most of the time happends most of the time.

I would say the best synergy point is having Spirit Tree. With all regens and tree my toon was over 700% regen at all times NOT counting HoT effects.

If I had to chose the best controller primary to pair with NA I would probably for an recharge heavy raged control set like Illusion or Earth. For solo Fire Contorl would be good with Entangling Aura and NA's rather good toughness.




Overall feeling:
The first point is the way you dont really feel like you are affecting the team at all. All your heals are over time, many are just regen. Overall its a lot of health but you dont have this savior of the day feeling like when you are playing an Empath or a Pain Dominator. You just keep rolling the regens and the HoTs and its very hard to see how much you do for your team.

The second point is toughness. With Tough, Weave, Wild Growth, Rock Armor and Perma Earth Embrace you really feel... tanky. Caped S/L defense, 40% res S/L/Tox and around 20% in all others, +157%hp and over 700% regen +buttload of HoT: quite good for squishy.
And thats without any incarnate powers.

If I ever roll (for real, not junk AE PL) another /NA Troller I would probably go for Earth/NA/Stone with Resilient Core, Clarion Core, Melee Core and be a tough **** control machine!

Perma Overgrowth is achievable and looks cool-ish. The problem is that endurance balance is something that nearly everyone build on their own they dont "wait" for you to help them. Of course its amazing while leveling but it will be far from perma while leveling.

All in all I'd say its comparable to Pain Dom with -regen and super flashy pretty graphics.

I am not sure I can survive a DM build without Fireball :/

Trying to undust my old Scrapper. I have some questions:

1- For 100%+ DDR I need Ageless now right?
2- Is DM still a good ST damage set or did it fell into the oblivion of ages, beaten to death to the new MA, Street Justice, TW and friends?
3- I used to run Smite/MG/Smite/SL but isnt Fireblast a better DPA than SL?
4- Does anyone have a build to share? I wont even show mine, it has non-innate fitness...

My point is if you just remove crashes you make 2 power pools extremely better and hardly affect the others. It breaks the balance (if there ever was one).

I think removing the crash is good but you have to bring balance to T9 powers, for exemple making something out of self rezes, because as you said, they kina suck.

"Just remove the crash" and "Make is a temporary toggle" leads to the same problem to how to balance for exemple Elusive VS Power Surge (or "hey look I have a self rez!").

I'm all good with the no crash thing if they balance T9 powers and make self rezes something like a strong self buff that eventually rezes you but still have an effect if you are alive (oh, and while you'r at it, revamp Stone Armor completely!).


If you look at the powers you'll have:
Great/Overpowered Powers: Power Surge - Unstoppable
Bad Powers: One with shield - Strengh of Will
Crap Powers: Overload - Elude
WTF I dont get anything: Dark Armor, Fiery Armor, Regeneration (comparatively)
WTF I dont get anything and I already suck so much its a shame: Stone Armor

Now you could try to convince me ElA and Invul do in the current state of the game need this buff compared to Fiery, Stone or SR but I really doupt you will.

One could consider that while all secondary effets on the blast are increased on defenders, the one on fire (damage over time) isnt.

Thats what I would be using

I just leveled one.

You have to be aware its really, really, really hard on endo. DA has 0 endo tools, TW is endo hungry. TW is basicly unsustainable on endurance before you score x3 proc shifters with Energy Mastery OR unless you are Regen/WP/Elec.
TW/DA is even worste. Right now I have a temporary build with the 3 proc shifters, Mirable, Numina and no purples.
I just scored T4 Ageless (no Agility yet) and its fine for one minute than its abit harsh on non-stop action (AVs or chain spawn). It should be ok with 2 or 3 purple 4%rec and Agility (or just Cardiac but I'm not going that way).

On the paper DA is amazing. Nearly 50% all resist and a small edge on def so its easier to hit caps, the best heal in the game and CC auras. From a defensive point of view its arguably the best you can find.
It has no hole. No psy hole, no toxic hole, no weakness to regen debuffs. The only thing you dont have it DDR but noone has high res AND DDR (not yet at least).

As for the skippable.
Defensive Sweep is skippable on a defense type build but it offers a LotG option.
Crushing Blow is Skippable if you use Gloom instead but you are probably going to go for Cardiac.
Titan Sweep is skippable but its a very good AoE and I wouldnt unless I go for TW/FA.