Thistletoe

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The point isn't that SBing the team is hard, the point is it's not fun.

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Precisely. But there will always be a subset of the playerbase who mistake "tedium" for "challenge" because they've never been properly challenged. I once read a lovely quote on point, something about how counting grains of sand is "challenging" too, but it certainly isn't fun.

Just nerf the darn thing and make it an AoE already. Aren't we all sick to death of hearing about SB?

I wouldn't mind seeing it be a 4 minute buff like many other buffs, or better yet, an AOE buff akin to rad's AM - if that necessitates a nerf to the buff's potency for balance purposes, so be it - the playerbase could stand to be weaned off the stuff anyway. "Annoyance" (or as the person a few posts up wisely noted: "irritation") is really a lazy way of trying to balance the power on the devs' part. Do better.

My earth/storm is easily my favorite CoX toon. But she's solidly for groups. Solo, she's mediocre by CoH standards, but in a group, she just owns spawns like no other controller. But I have a plant dom too and I can definitely see how storm would turn a plant troller into an early-blooming (pun intended!) solo killing machine, not just a group junkie. I like illusion, but not nearly enough to run it to 50 twice. If your choice is plant or ill, I'd go plant. But if you group most of your playtime, consider earth too - or consider both. I *would* run storm to 50 twice.

Just wanted to thank you for the excellent guide, KokopelliJoe. I was planning a */storm controller for an RP project, and thought earth/storm made sense to the story, but less so in gameplay. Your guide proved otherwise, and I'm loving it so far.