Sweetmeat

Mayhem, your start date implies that you do not have any of the veteran rewards attack powers yet. The first one available is Sands of Mu at 12 months. If this is so, I would STRONGLY encourage you to wait on trying to solo Earth/anything. Try Fire/Rad, or perhaps Plant/Storm for something that can easily be soloable at lower levels without veteran attacks to help with damage.

I'll check back tomorrow to see what you think. You could possibly solo Earth/Kin but you would need to take Stone Prison, and both Air Superiority, and Flurry(or Boxing, but I prefer Flurry) as attack powers, early in your career to make it work. That is going to make the build a little tighter than you have it currently. The good news is that Earth has enough control that you won't need the fighting pool for Tough and Weave. Honestly Earth/Kin without at least two veteran attacks is going to solo like a pig trapped in jello until lvl 39ish. Your enemies health bars will go down so slowly you won't be sure if they are moving at all.

I have an 20ish Earth/Kin, and she's pretty good on teams, but solo even with three veteran attacks is slow enough to drag some.

Hover is good because it allows you to place your Lightning Storm over the top of the mob, giving Knockdown instead of knock back from it. On the other hand, since you will be spamming Roots every time it comes up, you probably don't need it for that(unless you're fighting werewolves, who pretty well ignore your roots).

I would look at O2 Boost. I know there is a lot of disagreement about the usefulness of O2 Boost, but for plant I think it's almost a must. The flytrap pet is the squishiest pet in the game, and it tends to pull a lot of agro if you yourself are playing at range. I ended up going with the recharge pet set for it because of the resistance IO to make him tougher, and because he dies so often as well. It's nice to be able to top him between fights and to keep him in the fight, taking agro that would otherwise be hitting you. Especially if you end up soloing on 6+heroes at +1-ish, there will be things that don't get controlled immediately, and they will be causing some damage before you get them locked down and arrested.

This way you have O2 boost for your pet, and Hibernate for you, to take care of any fights that start to go poorly.

Ohh just wanted to add my thoughts on the APP. I went with Ice, because Hibernate = Win. Like I said earlier, you will find yourself running out of end, and sometimes you will find yourself taking more damage than you can regenerate. Hibernate is awesome for both problems. It can quickly refill your end bar in the middle of a tough fight, and it can keep you from having to run or face plant in a different kind of tough fight.

Also Frostbreath packs a serious punch to a large group that's already been debuffed by Freezing Rain and contained by Roots. I find that using it as my 4th power in the opener, half the minions dies at that point. The rest of the spawn follows quickly after a couple more roots applications.

I definitely don't ever go into melee with this character unless it's to use Sands of Mu on a held boss so the Stone APP is much less appealing to me than on some other Storm toons.

I'm not sure if anyone else has commented on the leadership pool so far, I don't have much time this morning to read the whole thread. Here's my thoughts on it:

1. Freezing Rain pretty much completely negates any need for tactics.
2. Plant/Storm later on, when you are using everything, will run you out end pretty quickly even if the only toggle you're running is Steaming Mists. This is with three slots in Stamina, and lots of sets giving 1.5, 2, and 2.5 recovery bonuses.
3. Vines is your ONLY reliable control versus things that are resistant to charm. Not taking it will severely limit what situations you can handle comfortably. I tend to use Vines heavily vs both Rikti and Nemesis, and often vs Carnies too. Also Vines is a great panic button if you end up agroing a second or third group and other controls haven't recharged yet.

Conclusion: By taking leadership and not taking Vines, you will be looking to run yourself out of end before you get the job done, and really hamstring yourself versus several villain types.

Plus Vines really only needs three slots to e pretty effective if you give it 3x Acc/Hold/Recharge it's not bad at all for really low slotting requirements. (I ended up 6 slotting with Lockdown for the ranged defense bonus and the extra hold proc)

Honestly your way will work because Plant/Storm is very resilient but the endurance issues will probably make this build seem to bog down a bit later and, in for me, you would have to pry Vines from my cold dead fingers - it's that useful to the character as a whole.

I slotted Gale with the Knockback set recharge proc, but I am usually so busy arresting bad guys I forget to use it. It's made it's way to the far end of my third bar, and gathers dust up there.

What Local said. I ended up not taking Earths Embrace even though I have the Stone APP, I just don't seem to need a heal that often. Three slotting Health and working IO sets for good ranged defense plus slotting Steaming Mists for defense keeps me pretty healthy. There are too many good powers in Earth/Storm to give up two spots for two VERY mediocre powers(compared to what you would give up, mediocre is definitely the word).

If you want to farm with Earth, Storm is going to be a much better secondary. Lightning Storm and Tornado both go a long way towards making up for Earths low damage. Also I agree with the procs comment, you can get slot the following:

quicksand - slow set proc
earthquake - lady greys, and knockback set proc
stone cages - trap of the hunter and positrons
freezing rain - lady greys, positrons, and slow set proc, though I only put two of the three in it.
Volcanic gasses - 2 hold procs and positrons though again I only put two of the three in it.
Snowstorm - slow set proc (I have this in there but I rarely use snowstorm, so it's probably not worth it)

With all of those, plus the single target and aoe damage powers from your APP, you should be able to farm reletively well with Earth/Storm, or even with Earth/Cold, though losing Thunderstorm and Tornado will really lower your damage potential.

OK so I agree with others that this power is worth taking because it's the best AoE hold in the game, but you can also make it one of Earths few opportunities to do some real damage.

VG can accept at least three damage procs (both hold procs and positron's blast). Since the vents fire off pretty often, and each one can hit several mobs in the area, and each time they fire they have a chance of applying the procs to those mobs; it gives you a unique opportunity to really hurt stuff while still doing the main job of controlling. I slot my VG with 4 x Acc/Hold/Recharge and two procs (the hold ones are both cheaper than positrons). This has the power up often, has the vents stacking holds so bosses in the area will be held often just by VG itself (much less common now than before the pet recharge nerf, but still possible) and can be counted on to actually hit things without having to drop quicksand or earthquake to help it out - though I drop quicksand and earthquake anyway because they have procs in them too, making it an overlapping region of held mobs dieng to my uber proccage.

Anyway I hope that helps with your decision on whether to take it. VG itself does very little damage so definitely don't slot it for damage, but the procs can help it do quite a lot if you decide to use them.

I always take swift at 6. Of course I have had 2 veteran attacks for several years now so that gives me a little extra umph up front. Still even when I only had Sands of Mu available, I liked swift at 6 to get me around more quickly. Haste at 6 to me just means you run out of endurance really quickly and have to wait around for it to come back. That and without Stamina, the crash is brutal.

Different strokes I guess.

I liked your middle build better than the end one, but that's because I like using Hover for placing Lightning Storm directly above my foes. Turns the KB into knockdown, which I usually prefer, especially with your pets chasing knocked backed mobs into agro. Illusion/Storm does need Hasten though, so something would have to give. I ended up not taking Frost Breath or Ice Storm on my Ill/Storm because it is uncommon for her to have much in the way of containment, so they do a LOT less damage for an Illusion controller than for most other controller builds. Otherwise it is very like my build.

Brakkus, I just saw your last post. To answer your question, Yes, eventually you will deal some damage. If you want to be able to deal damage earlier, you can do what I do and Proc EVERYTHING. Here's a list of possible places for damage procs, that when you get enough of them stacking, actually ends up killing things.

If you only take a few, they won't do much. Having a lot of them, in aoe powers, getting LOTs of different checks on all the mobs constantly is where they end up working well for you.

Quicksand (slow set proc), Earthquake (Lady Grey, and knockback set proc), Sleet (Lady Grey, and Positrons), Volcanic gasses can take at least three, but I only use two and then use 4x acc/hold/recharge to get it back up as often as possible and to hold stuff,since you know... it is an aoe hold(VG - the two hold set procs are the cheapest way to go but it will take Positrons too). Stone Cages will take Trap of the Hunter and Positrons, but I usually go full set Trap of the Hunter for the high ranged defense bonus in the 6th slot. Snowstorm(slow set proc). Note: going this route is sort of expensive for a casual player, and it takes a while to get enough slots into powers so that they are both doing their jobs, and procing for you too. At level 17, just concentrate on control, and find teams you can use to do the killing(while you make them invincible).

Even using these, soloing will be very slow till you get the pet. Once you get into your 40s, the aoes from the epic pools will put out a LOT of damage, and the Earth set has a Huge damage power in Seismic Smash that is also a hold!(drool), but Frost Breath and Fire Ball both do respectable damage when contained, and the foes are pre-debuffed.

Ohhh Ben, never cut back on Earthquake; It has a good accuracy debuff that will still be helping your team even when someone cages over it. I tend to six slot earthquake and slot for both recharge and accuracy debuff(using sets to maximize both), then add a couple procs, because an Earth controller can never have enough procs

I think the problem you run into with Earth/Ice is the same as you run into with Earth/Storm - there is only one "bad" power in the two sets combined. Picking what to leave out is tricky at best. On my Earth/Storm I ended up leaving out a travel power because there were so many things I wanted. Earth/Ice is the same way, Salt Crystals is the only power in the two sets together that wouldn't end up being really handy at some time or another. You may end up having to respec several times in order to figure out exactly which powers fit your style, and then just lament the few you couldn't take. Even so, it should be a very fun, powerful build regardless of what you end up keeping.

Some you HAVE to take:

Both shields, Earthquake, Volcanic Gasses, the Freezing Rain clone, the Steaming Mists clone, Infridgidate, the single target hold, Stalagmites, and Stoney. Everything else is negotiable, depending on your style, and whether you intend to solo, and how many veteran attacks you have.

I personally like Frostwork, combined with your shields and controls, it is generally enough to keep that agro grabbing blaster alive even through his amazing stupidity, or keep the tank topped out and REALLY hard to kill - even if he started the mission as a scrapper Not having it I think takes a tool out of your box that meets a need that none of your other powers can quite match. There will be times, when nothing but having a person regain some health will keep them alive. I like O2 boost for the same reason in /Storm.

* edited because I left out Stalagmites and that is not negotiable.

I have a baby Ill/Emp controller, who did a Synapse the other week. I have to say, once I got Fortitude (during the TF) I ended up using VERY few heals from then on out. Between the control you can get from Illusion, and the excellent buff for the two biggest agro magnets, everything ran very smoothly.

Brittany Fears is a lot of fun -I very much recommend Illusion/Emp if you want an Empath.

The controller boards don't tend to engage in the EMP debate because our secondary is rarely what we're relying on most. Generally it's agreed that if you are playing well, it's the buffs from the Empathy set that shine the most for us, not the heals, because good use of controls should negate most needs for healing, and the buffs seem to negate the rest.

There's very little angst on the subject. Speed Boost from /Kin on the other hand will get you some epic debate.

Seems like a lot of hoops to jump through to avoid three of the best powers in the game:

Swift so I don't feel like I'm wading through molasses.
Health which is roughly equivalent over time to spamming an unslotted RA.
Stamina, the king of all powers bar none.

No buttons to push, no friends to annoy by constantly needing a hit off their crack pipe, no mess, no frills; just good clean endurance recovery, completely assured, regardless of who you team with and what powers they took.

I did have one character one time that put it off till 22 ...

I took Hurricane at 49. To me there were other powers that were always more handy, including Spirit Tree at 47(as a place to park a couple Numina's enhances).

Hurricane is really only useful against things that are strongly resistant to confuse(Nemesis Robots mainly) and maybe to help debuff an AV. Snowstorm + Hurricane will work on things that resist confuse, but it's messy, and you run across them so seldom you really don't even need to take Hurricane at all (thus at 49).

Snowstorm however is very handy against bosses so I take it pretty early. If you're having trouble with multiple bosses on a pull, you can Roots them so they don't get close to you, and Snowstorm till Seeds recharges to keep them from shooting at you much before you turn them into minions. Or until you can double stack holds on both of them(requires slotting you hold for hold rather than damage).

This works well both solo and on teams.

I would probably go with 5 Positrons and an IO recharge. When I slotted it on my Plant/Storm sets were bugged and I haven't gotten around to reslotting it yet. I think they fixed the bug several months ago though so I'll be going with 5 Positrons(everything but the proc) and a recharge.

I would go with the procs. If you really need single target damage, Tornado will do it for you. Otherwise a large number of procs end up doing a lot of aoe damage once you get them stacked up, and Earth can use all the aoe damage help it can get.

Edit: Reading StrykerX's reply, I think his analysis misses both the fact that you are using a large number of procs, and each one gets a chance to fire on anyone in the area of the effect of the power every 10 seconds. Freezing Rain gives you two chances to proc, Earthquake gives you 4, but that is multiplied by the number of targets in the area, and again by the number of procs in the power. The real selling point is that these are powers you are going to use every fight anyway, so leaving the procs out of them would waste the opportunity to get what adds up to be significant damage out those powers.

Flash Arrow actually does help, and personally I think most people too easily dismiss the 5% to hit debuff. On the other hand, Earth has a LOT of great powers, and TA has enough better powers that every time it came up to chose Flash or something else, something else always won out.

If you are using it, and liking it, I would go ahead and keep it. If I were to switch something else out for it, glue arrow would hit the chopping block.

Most people will disagree here, but another option to cut out is Oil Slick Arrow. It's on a really long timer, and you already have Earthquake up every fight that is very similar (2 proc Earthquake for damage). If you are looking to do damage as Earth/TA, then you can put procs in Quicksand(slow set proc), Acid arrow(Positrons and Lady Grey), Earthquake(knockback set proc and Lady Grey), Stone Cages (Positrons and Trap of the Hunter), and Volcanic Gasses(2x hold set procs). You will end up using most of those powers(not VG) every fight so the damage there will always contribute, where Oil Slick Arrow is up every 3-4 fights at best and can cause your pet to run away(which you NEVER want to happen).

I think he meant better than Earth/TA for solo and in that case the answer is yes, much better than Earth/TA to solo. The good thing about doing Earth/TA during double exp weekend though is that it's the one time you can be assured of getting a team easily and quickly, so you might look at holding off on the Ill/Rad for when you may have a harder time getting a team.

Vines is an Excellent place to 6 slot Lockdown. Good bonuses and the proc is awesome. Or if you want to shorten it to 4 slots, franken-slotting 4x accuracy/hold/recharge also works pretty well. It can wait till a bit later though (mid 30s ... I didn't slot Tornado as heavily so you can find slots then if you need some).

Sterling's build is very close to my own. The only thing I did differently is that I took O2 boost rather than a second travel power (Superspeed + Super Jump isn't necessary, but the utility of O2 boost, is huge; especially since the Fly Trap is the squishiest pet in the game). I've found that the only things that pierce the veil of my Steaming Mists regularly is Nemesis, and you can deal with them using Creepers, Freezing Rain from around a corner, or your AoE hold so full invisibility isn't needed unless you want to stealth mission (I go to missions to beat up bad guys, not to avoid them completely).

I took the Ice APP for Hibernation (you don't need the extra damage by that time really so Frost Breath and Ice Storm were gratuitous).

Without set bonuses you will find yourself running low one Endurance VERY quickly unless you slot some end reduction in nearly every power. With sets, you can generally get enough end reduction slotted and recovery bonuses to make it pretty smooth. I still find myself running low on power early in a fight, but often I can take most of the rest of the fight to recover, because a lot of Plant/Storm is dumping everything plus the kitchen sink early and then standing back while the mobs die. You will be spamming Roots for damage even if you don't need to do anything else after setting the destruction in motion so there is some endurance drain during every fight right up to the end.

Here's what I took (my Earth/TA is currently 47). I took Hasten because having VG and Emp Arrow up more often is worth more than having any other power available instead. The only trouble I run into with my Earth/TA is that sometimes the squishies are too good at finding that tiny bit of agro I haven't gotten around to stifling yet early in a fight and end up needing a heal that I don't have. Some people are too stupid to live I guess, otherwise Earth is one of only two sets I would recommend to go with TA because TA is honestly lacking in ways to keep a full group alive well, and Earth along with Illusion are the only two sets that can make up for that lack by being able to literally control every single mob you might ever pull. Actually Plant might work as too, Seeds of confusion and Creepers can fill the holes as well.

Hero Plan by Mids' Hero Designer 1.601
http://www.cohplanner.com/

Level 48 Magic Controller
Primary Power Set: Earth Control
Secondary Power Set: Trick Arrow
Power Pool: Fitness
Power Pool: Leaping
Power Pool: Speed
Ancillary Pool: Fire Mastery

Hero Profile:
------------
Level 1: Fossilize Empty(A)
Level 1: Entangling Arrow Empty(A)
Level 2: Stone Prison Empty(A)
Level 4: Stone Cages Empty(A)
Level 6: Quicksand Empty(A)
Level 8: Swift Empty(A)
Level 10: Ice Arrow Empty(A)
Level 12: Stalagmites Empty(A)
Level 14: Health Empty(A)
Level 16: Combat Jumping Empty(A)
Level 18: Earthquake Empty(A)
Level 20: Acid Arrow Empty(A)
Level 22: Stamina Empty(A)
Level 24: Super Jump Empty(A)
Level 26: Volcanic Gasses Empty(A)
Level 28: Disruption Arrow Empty(A)
Level 30: Hasten Empty(A)
Level 32: Animate Stone Empty(A)
Level 35: Oil Slick Arrow Empty(A)
Level 38: EMP Arrow Empty(A)
Level 41: Fire Ball Empty(A)
Level 44: Fire Shield Empty(A)
Level 47: Fire Blast Empty(A)
Level 49: Glue Arrow Empty(A)
------------
Level 1: Brawl Empty(A)
Level 1: Sprint Empty(A)
Level 2: Rest Empty(A)
Level 1: Containment
------------
Set Bonus Totals:

Earth/TA is very different from anything else I've ever played, and it really can do some amazing, drop your jaw - I can't believe I just did that controlling. Just don't try to solo it before 33. It doesn't matter how many veteran attacks you have, and how many procs you slot, this set lacks for damage before the early 30s. If you do want to solo it, TA is great for places to put procs into, and so is Earth. Butters up the bad guys nicely so you never have to do too much to finish anyone off after it gets rolling.

Hmmm... if you like being in Melee, then The Stone APP was made for you. The thing is that Earth has so much control that being in melee isn't all that dangerous. Both of the Stone APP powers you get in close with have either a stun or a hold attached so when you nail the already controlled bad guys they are doubly screwed, as well as hurt badly. I like it for exactly this reason, it makes it easy to stack holds and stuns on bosses at the same time you're actually doing some damage to them. After 40 levels of really low damage potential it's really invigorating I would only go fire if you actually enjoy being at range. If you like getting up in their face, Stone APP all the way.

My Earth/TA went with Fire because she's all ranged. My Earth/Storm went Stone and has no issues being in close and laying it out. Either flavor works fine.

Edit:

Ack, just read your last post: Do not drop Fireball. Drop the rez or rise of the phoenix. I'd probably drop rise of the phoenix, you'll use the rez on occasion, but by the time you are in your 40s you will almost never die yourself. Also if you are team oriented I would look at Fire Shield instead of Fireblast. You've got two staff powers for ranged damage, and they'll nearly always hit because of the def debuffs in Quicksand and Earthquake. You probably don't need Fireblast.

Now that I think about it, you don't have Hasten. I'd take Hasten over any of the APP powers but Fire Ball. Having your Earth controls and your Thermal debuffs up more often is MUCH handier than anything but the Fireball.

For solo, I would look at:

Fire/Rad - earliest bloomer, this pair actually starts rocking at lvl 4 and never stops. I found it takes some practice to make it team well though.

Plant/Storm - another early bloomer, lots of fun, very safe, great synergy.

Illusion/Storm - most capable controller I have for any and every situation, this one has what you need to get the job done. Not slow to start, but really doesn't start to take your breath away till 21ish. After that it is jaw-dropping good.

Grav/Storm - I am not a big fan of Gravity for the most part because I feel it lacks in control compared to other primaries. Paired with /Storm however, the synergy is remarkably good. This one take off at lvl 6 and just keeps getting better.

I tend to solo a lot and /Storm gives both extra control and high damage potential, which is why I tend to be such a fan of the set. It works as well on teams as solo, and once you learn what NOT to do on teams has no real downsides.