Earth Control and Kinetics - By SlappyWack

Earth/Kinetics – By SlappyWack (Justice server)



An Introduction

Earth controllers are rare, earth/kinetics controllers are even rarer and I haven’t come across another one in god knows how many hours of play. Different people have different reasons for playing controllers. Some like having their pet (or pets) charge around in some form of organized chaos ripping huge groups of enemies to bits. Others like turning whole armies of enemies into bouncing lumps of helplessness while your team steamrollers over them. This is an earth controller. Mass crowd control is what your best at, even after the recharge increases, ED and the loss of perma-hasten you will be hard pushed to find anything that can keep things locked down as well as earth control.

Since there are precious few earth guides (only one other up-to-date guide just now) and no earth/kinetics guides that I’ve come across, I thought I would throw something together to shine a light on this specific build.

Earth/kinetics starts off slowly and gradually builds up to an awesomely powerful buff machine. If you’re the type that likes to feel powerful by level 6 then this probably wouldn’t be your first choice. I leveled this controller before containment was added so slotting for damage really wasn’t an option back then. I’m not going to bother trying to describe a build that would allow you to solo from level 1 as I have no experience or desire for this style of play. It takes some time for this build to get together but once you’re into your 20’s you will really be feeling the earthy goodness. I spent a good while teaming with a dark armour scrapper around this level and it does bring a smile when they tell you that they don’t even need their toggles on anymore.

As an earth controller you have one the most control heavy primaries (mind control has a bit more) but lack in any significant form of direct damage outside of your pet or any self buff/utility powers. Many of the earth control powers are AoE and have the associated endurance costs and recharges. Kinetics can smooth over these issues with its massive damage buffs, recharge buffs and near infinite endurance. If I was to say I choose kinetics as secondary because it seemed the “best” choice then I would be lying. I took it because it’s cool and fun to use. Happily it turned out to be a great choice as earth has so much control that taking extra from your secondary isn’t so important.

Kinetics as a secondary takes a good while to mature with the two jewels of the set being transference and fulcrum shift. The powers leading up to these are effective but the step up in power is so significant at levels 35 and 38 that it’s worth a mention.

So what does kinetics do? The best answer I can come up with is that if you were to drop an earth/kinetics controller into a team it will do everything it did before only far faster and far safer. You can make the tankers hit like trains and turn the scrapper into an unequalled killing machine. If you can ever convince the blaster to get in fulcrum shift range then “Badger buggering Christ!” sums up the resulting carnage nicely. All of this while laying down more control than you can shake a ferret at.







Earth Control



Stone Prison

Single target immobilize with –defence –fly and a brief -knockdown. Does exactly the same damage as air superiority but over time. If you want to solo before level32 then this might be a good idea, the damage is as good as it gets for an earth control power but you may be better off with flurry or air superiority if you don’t like the (longish) DoT. It can be useful against AV’s as some can be immobilized permanently. It also looks impressive when you immobilize a giant monster, even if the graphics take up most the zone.

I didn’t take this power while leveling as I rarely have the need to immobilize only a single target but I will probably swap cages for this once I get around to using a pure PvP build.
In PvP this power can be useful as not everything with mez resistance can resist immobilize and the –fly is great.



Slotting – The base duration and accuracy on this power are pretty high so you could easily get away with just 1 accuracy in this.





Fossilize
This is your single target hold and comes with a –def. You will be using this power constantly. Like other controller holds it takes 2 applications to hold a boss and 1 for anything else.
It should also be noted that this hold doesn’t work on flying enemies. The effect will stick to them but unless they land it won’t hold them. This isn’t really a big problem as very few things can fly in PvE and when they do you have stone cages/prison to sort them out.
(This whole won’t work on flying stuff doesn’t appear in any description of the power that I could find in game making this an uniformed decision for new players. If a dev should happen upon this either update the description or remove the effect)



Slotting – I go with 2 accuracy, 3 hold and a recharge. The extra accuracy is very helpful when you go up against enemies with high defence such as the vengeance happy nemesis and defensive sets in PvP. Getting this slotted should be high in you list of priorities.





Stone Cages
This is your AoE Immobilize. Comes with –def, -fly and short duration of knockdown resistance. Does about half the damage of stone prison and activates a little slower. The accuracy on this is bad and the endurance can be costly at the lower levels.
This is a power that is best used along with stalagmites when you pick that up at level 12. It will keep enemies from drunkenly leaping over buildings and other plausible objects…
The anti knock back on this power is a godsend. At some point in your career you will encounter someone who hasn’t mastered when/how to use knock back powers in a beneficial way (usually a beginner who started an energy/energy blaster like most of us did). It’s often easier to use this constantly rather than to explain the knock back thing since it can lead to an angry little blaster if they take your pointers as “Telling them how to play their blaster when they have 15 level 60’s and batman as a dad” instead of helpful advice. Luckily this happens rarely as most foolish blasters die off by the mid20’s or to quote every moron on the world of warcraft forum, they “learn2play”. God I hate world of warcraft…



Slotting – 2/3 accuracy is needed as it has a nasty to-hit penalty. With 2 single origins it’s got a good chance to hit most things. Anything else is purely optional but I found that since I use it mainly for temporary –knock back that immobilize durations are wasted as you have to keep recasting it for the effect anyway.





Quicksand
Location Aoe with –speed, -jump and –fly. Same endurance costs and recharge as earthquake but a longer duration. This power is good right away with just a single recharge or slow slotted in it. I love powers that don’t need slots to be useful as it lets you focus on the powers that do need them which are of particular importance in the early game. If you didn’t want stone cages because of the bad accuracy and endurance cost then this is a good enough substitute. If you use it with stalagmites it can keep most things from wandering very far and will stop them leaping and/or super speeding away. This is how I used it during the early levels and it can help a lot from a tactical perspective as you have more time to react if a boss starts heading for the defender. It doesn’t need line of sight to use this so you can hide round a corner/in a bus stop etc and drop one in the path of enemies.

In PvP this power is going to keep you alive since nobody without teleport or phase shift stands much of a chance at getting out of it. See that big angry scrapper/brute that recons they are going to kill you in 3 hits? Or the stalker that didn’t quite kill you? Well now they aren’t going to get near you anymore and stand a good chance of half the zone dropping on them before they get out of it. If you slot this power then you can drop these fast enough that you can keep someone slowed pretty much permanently. The way kinetics works with transfusion and transference means that this power is vital to actually getting in range of these without your opponent just running away so that you never receive the benefit. When you stack this with siphon speed you have one unhappy melee opponent. It’s also worth noting that since it can take you a while to kill anything that this stops them just running off when they get low on health. The only thing with significant slow resistance is an ice tank and even this can be over come pretty fast with enough stacking or de-toggling via repel.



Slotting: Purely optional as its fine with a single recharge or slow. For PvP I’m 6 slotting with 3 recharge and 3 slow.





Salt Crystals
Pbaoe foe sleep and –def. This is the controversial choice in earth control as with all sleeps it can be interrupted by heavy breathing. The range of this power is pretty large meaning that you can happily stand on the edge of a group and hit a good number of them. It has the same accuracy penalty and endurance cost as stone cages which means that you need 2 accuracies to get anywhere with it. This is really down to your play style and build but I found that I didn’t have room for it. It can be a helpful power, most notably when someone aggros a group they shouldn’t of. It requires good communication with your team to be effective. On the plus side it looks a lot cooler than stone cages.



Slotting: As an emergency power 2 accuracy would be fine. The duration is long enough for most situations as it is.





Stalagmites
Ranged targeted aoe disorient with a –def. This is your best quick control. The activation is near instant, the aoe radius is good and the duration is nice enough. I really can’t think of a good reason not to have this and even with the control nerfs it’s still effective. The only issue with this power is the accuracy and how to deal with the drunken wanderings of your targets (see quicksand and stone cages). A requirement of this power is that you are on the ground when you activate it which has never given me any problems. This power is easily your best opener as it allows you to drop your soft controls from relative safety while your team mates pick up the aggro.

In PvP it has its uses since you stand a reasonable chance of hitting someone on an opposing team that doesn’t have mez protection when you launch it at a group. Even if they pop a break free it is still time spent in which they were not attacking you or your team.



Slotting: 2 accuracy is needed. The recharge needs reducing so either 2 or 3 of those with the remaining 1-2 going to disorient duration. I use 2 acc, 3 recharge and 1 disorient as I like to have it up as often as possible.





Earthquake
Ranged location aoe foe knockdown with a –def. My favorite power in the set and the reason I started an earth controller in the first place. Sadly the time when you can stack 3 of these has gone but it is still a fine power. This power will randomly knock things over on a regular basis and is a great soft control. Couple this with quicksand and most enemies can’t get off it at all.

Deadly to anyone in PvP that doesn’t have knock back protection or teleport. This power gives you a fighting chance against blasters and their trays of break frees while being generally disruptive to anyone that has their toggles dropped.



Slotting: 3 recharge as soon as you can afford to.





Volcanic Gasses
Ranged location aoe foe hold with a trivial amount of fire damage on each hit. This is the earth control aoe hold and it’s a strange beast compared to the other controller aoe holds. When you drop this is will randomly start firing out jets of gas that hold whatever it hits and anything close to them. As with everything earth control its best used with quicksand to stop things leaving the area. This power has the potential to hold multiple bosses but due to the random targeting of the jets it isn’t very likely to do so. This is your most powerful PvE control and is what you want against the very nasty groups. Each hit seems to have the same magnitude as your single target hold but the duration is much shorter.

In PvP this power is questionable because of the individual durations of the holds. If someone walked over it they would be held but for an annoyingly short time which would quickly trigger suppression allowing them to wander out of it. Use of quicksand and siphon speed can stop them getting out quickly but its still not much use. I find it most useful as a way to scare people out of certain areas since not many blasters would voluntarily run right through it. What also helps is that there are so few earth controllers that I’m willing to bet that many haven’t seen it before and avoid the green gas simply because they don’t know what it does.



Slotting: This is a strange one to slot as it can take accuracies but it’s very hard to tell if they are actually doing anything. Initially I had one accuracy in this but when I removed it as I couldn’t see a difference. I use 3 recharge and 3 hold durations for maximum availability and duration. It’s useful without slots but the recharge is long so unless you really need something else slotted this is good place to drop them in.





Animate Stone
Your little rock monster! This guy comes with 2 melee attacks (stone fist and mallet), a ranged attack (hurl boulder), good damage resistance, immunity to psionic damage and I’ve never seen him mezzed.

The individual attacks do decent damage but recharge quite slowly. The downside is that he is just as smart as a rock. I mean a really retarded rock that was dropped on its head as a child, developed severe ADD and an irrational and crippling fear of using melee attacks. The description that says “melee” is wrong most of the time as he will rarely run into melee range unless something attacks him at melee or you summon him into a group of enemies. I’ve tried refusing to control or heal/buff until he goes into melee but he just won’t listen. It’s possible to tempt him into melee by using stealth + super speed for invisibility and hoping it runs to you before going into his attack pattern. When there was 2-3 of these guys running about they made up for their crippling idiocy with numbers but sadly he’s just a lonely idiot now. As a small gesture he was given knock back resistance which is handy as it let me drop increase density from my build. This guy really needs an AI change as he simply doesn’t cycle attacks. He will either use stone fist or mallet in melee but never both. He does like using hurl boulder though. Repeatedly and maliciously to make sure anything that was in volcanic gasses never stays there and that your transference/transfusion target will be knocked out of range or killed while the power activates.

This guy is in need of an upgrade to bring him into line with other pets. I don’t want the damage of fire imps or the ranged kick of a phantasm, I just want an AI change to stop him just standing there throwing a boulder once a week and actually cycle attacks. Anything that lets him generate a bit of aggro would really make him useful since what is the point of damage resistance if nothing tries to hit him? I would consider this a bonus to just having him go into melee more. Alternatively just change the description to call him ranged and low damage to avoid any high expectations. When you look at the other controller pets and what they can do on a team it does make you a little depressed. As he is now I rarely, if ever, use him on a team as the AI makes him a liability rather than a help and my time is better spent looking after team mates than this moron.

With all that said he does still let you solo but it’s going to be slow until you get fulcrum shift. Something to note is that when you hit 32 you shouldn’t cringe too much as he is infinitely better with slots. Kinetics is the only reason I have a use for this guy because speed boost does wonders for his slow cycling attacks. When you get him in fulcrum shift (and therefore melee) he really can lay down some big hits and be pretty effective. This is an exercise in frustration though as he doesn’t like melee range. His immunity to psionics is helpful at times. Actually I’m lying, it was helpful in one mission and that’s the psionic clock work king and even after he took the initial nuke he was one shotted from a melee attack taking aggro back onto me before the tank could click taunt.



Slotting:1-2 accuracy and 3 damage ASAP.







Kinetics



Transfusion
No choice in taking this one but its great anyway. Kinetics tends to spend a lot of time in or very close to melee range and this is one of the reasons. It’s the most powerful aoe heal (in terms of big green numbers) available to a controller and has the same base recharge time as fossilize. The draw back is that it requires a to-hit roll and it can be difficult to help out the ranged AT’s with. The AoE range is fairly large and it activates very quickly. Comes with a –regen component that can come in useful for long Av battles and in lengthy fights against regen scrappers. Having been on the receiving end as a /regen I can testify that with enough stacking it put a very real dent in integration.



Slotting: You need at least 2 accuracy enhancements in this, possibly more at lower levels if you find yourself missing more than you like. It’s worth putting 5 slots in this before level 20 as it can and will keep you alive
I use 2 acc, 3 heal, 1 recharge





Siphon Power
A staple power of the kinetics set. The target gets a 20% (approx) damage debuff and every team mate or pet within a reasonable radius of yourself receives a +20%(approx) damage buff. The only real thing to be aware of is positioning as you will want to get as much of your team as possible in the buff radius. Later on when you pick up fulcrum shift this can be used to buff up the ranged AT’s that may have missed the effects of fulcrum shift. It’s also worth noting what you target this on. The -damage is mostly wasted on a minion but can be useful on bosses/Lt’s. Failing that, aim for whatever enemy has the lowest defence (not those damned rikti drones or that paragon protector in its moment of glory).
This is one of those powers that become much more significant when you can stack it. It has a reasonable recharge on it and like most kinetics powers needs a to-hit roll. Through most of the game this power is very useful, it speeds up fights and taking 20% less damage from a boss is always nice until you can get them held. I found that in most battles I would drop down a large alpha strike of control (eg. Stalagmites, earthquake and quicksand) and that this would leave most enemies flopping or incapacitated while you are left free to throw holds about and hit this power as often as possible.
If you’re lucky enough to find another kinetic defender/controller/corrupter then this becomes awesome early on. I remember doing the frost fire mission with a kinetic defender and with at least 2/3 of these stacked permanently I remember the scrapper saying something about “A hot knife through butter”.
The debuff component comes into its own when you start fighting arch villains, with 3 or more of these stacked it can make a big difference to the damage output of an AV and can make the difference between a dead or nearly dead blaster.



Slotting: Don’t go out of your way to slot this one as you have more important control powers that should be getting the priority. I recommend that a 2nd accuracy is a good investment and is all I had in it for ages.
This is probably over kill for a controller but my current slotting is 2 accuracy and 3 recharge as I find the –damage to help with AVs.





Repel
An AoE melee ranged knock back toggle that costs extra endurance per enemy that it tries to hit. It actually became possible to run this power for more than a few seconds since the endurance cost was reduced. Don’t let that fool you because in PvE this power isn’t much use. Many of your best controls are drops and knocking things clean out of your earthquake just doesn’t seem so useful to me. You could use it to knock things back in, but just holding them has always been good enough for me.
The only use that I have for this power is its PvP ability to drop toggles. It has a low chance to drop a random toggle on each hit (requires a to-hit roll) but it attacks fast. Using it against high defence opponents (ice tanks, super reflex scrappers) it will take longer to knock down the toggles because of increased missing so it really eats up endurance this way.



Slotting: It has a high endurance cost so 1 endurance reduction is needed. For PvP if you want to run this much a second endurance would help and an accuracy or two would be handy once/if the ability to slot these is added.





Siphon Speed
Previously this was little more than a crap travel power but thanks to the newly added recharge reduction and the addition of travel power suppression it now kicks [censored]. Requires a to-hit roll like siphon power but instead of damage it buffs your movement and recharge speeds while slowing the targets.
Now this is no hasten but when you can stack reliably stack 2/3 of these on yourself you will notice it. This power takes a bit of getting used to as you will be close to (if not at) the speed cap most of them time. It works well for crippling bosses before you can get them held. The other big plus is that the speed cannot be suppressed. This is most useful in PvP as melee types can’t get near you when you couple this with quicksand (if you’re paying attention anyway).
This one isn’t worth forcing into a build but is great to have. I personally dropped increase density for it at level24 and haven’t regretted it. (no team has noticed either)



Slotting: 2 accuracy will do to begin with but throwing recharges at it just makes it better.
This is one of the powers I swear by in PvP so I slot it 3 accuracy and 3 recharge to make damned sure it hits and can stack as much as possible.





Increase Density
Gives an ally resistance to disorient, hold, immobilization, knock back, teleport, smashing damage and energy damage while slightly slowing their movement speed. While it sounds good on paper the duration of this is its drawback. It lasts about a 1 minute and I’ve found the best use for it was to free team mates from status effects. The knock back resistance has come in useful as I often teamed with a dark armour scrapper (no knock back resistance) that found this handy from time to time (think CoT earthquake bosses). The slow effect on it is trivial even without speed boost.
As I said above I replaced this power with siphon speed when it got the +recharge and haven’t regretted it. This is a good power to have but I’m yet to have someone complain that I don’t have it.

Update: The mez resistance of this power can now be stacked with other applications (from different sources, not just casting it twice) for increased resistances to hold, disorient etc. The slow debuff and the damage resistance will not stack.




Slotting: Give it a +resistance and leave it at that.





Speed Boost
Buffs an ally with +speed, +endurance recovery and +recharge. Lasts 4 minuets and is a signature power for kinetics.
Everyone loves the speed boost! (Especially stone tanks) Or at least mostly, some tanks/scraps find it too difficult to control and no amount of explaining will get them to accept that they are being foolish. This boggles my mind quite frankly as I have both a tank and a scrapper that love it. I’ll take this opportunity to [censored] and moan at you anti-crack heads as you mess up my buffing routine. Grrr
This power also turns you pet rock into something serviceable. He benefits massively from the +recharge since most of the attacks he uses are on long (ish) timers. Its also worth noting that with a combination of speed boost, stoney and a lot of caltrops he managed to herd half a floor of the knives of artemis right back to me, caused a fair shock seeing that the first time (*shudder*).

On a side note this is something that can be given to the lowbies as they hobble about the hollows early on.
A word of caution: refrain from using it on a lowbie who is approaching a cliff. While you may have good intentions, most people don’t appreciate suddenly flying into the air and landing in a large group of igneous bosses. (There is still a stain on my keyboard where I sneezed coffee out my nose because of this)



Slotting: The default slot is good enough really but if you have the slots and feel generous then give it one or two more to keep the teams endurance ticking over nicely. (Slot with those new fangled endurance modification things)





Inertial Reduction
An AoE click power version of super jump. Permanent right out the bag as long as you have endurance to use it. Has come in handy getting super speeders to the terra volta reactor. Would make a great substitute travel power if you could get it earlier, sadly you have to wait until level 28 for this. You could respec once you can get this but it would make exemplaring and fighting in bloody bay very painful.

I took this because super speed alone just makes me angry when your progress is thwarted by a tall fence. (Why is it I can make the earth shake but I can’t climb a fence?)
This has the same bonus as siphon speed in that it can’t be suppressed. This is handy in the PvP zones as you can bounce about like a maniac and only ever stop to re-cast it.



Slotting: Either a jump or a recharge. Without the recharge the power tends to need recasting while you’re still in mid air which isn’t so great if you land in something unfriendly or are mid hop in the shadow shard.





Transference
Looks like a blue version of transfusion with a higher recharge and longer activation. This will restore endurance to any ally in the area of effect and drain endurance from the target. Same AoE radius as transfusion.

Kiss goodbye to your endurance problems because this power is awesome on toast. Not only does it refill almost an entire bar of endurance but it drains it as well. Not just electric blast drain either, this is proper sapper stuff. With 2 endurance modifications this can pretty much cripple an even con boss for long enough that you can hold him without any real worry. In PvP end drain is pretty much useless outside long of 1v1 bouts against scraps/tanks/brutes. With the end drain and constant slowing from quicksand and siphon speed you can eventually knock down toggles. I must stress the word eventually because if this drained as much as it does in PvE there would be zones full of kinetics defenders running around giggling while smack talking themselves onto the lowest rung of humanity (next to mimes, pop idol contestants and people who refuse speed boost). I can’t really get across how awesome this power is so I’ll say this: it gives you the wind necessary to solo that huge banished pantheon monster.
The only downside to this power is that whenever you play anything else you will have the feeling that you have bugger all endurance.

Transference and stamina: - As good as this power is I wouldn’t recommend missing stamina because of it. With this alone you would do all right but if you ever want to do any exemplaring, (PvP zones especially) then keep stamina.



Slotting: Slot it and slot it now. I go with 2 accuracy, 2 recharge and 2 endurance modifications.





Fulcrum Shift
Ranged AoE, team +damage, foe –damage.
When you fire this off a buff radiates around your self and every enemy within range of the target. For every enemy you or a team mate is in range of they receive a +damage buff. More enemies equal more damage.
This is the defining power of kinetics. It’s what turns the scrapper’s comments from “Cool, I’m doing to a fair bit more damage with that siphon power thing on me” to “Holy statesman-on-a-stick! I just one shotted a lieutenant !”. If you ever find a scrapper who thinks those imaginary healers are the best thing going then you can bet that they hadn’t met someone with this power before.

This one really does work best with the melee types who are already in the thick of things. If you want to persuade the blasters and defenders to follow you in then the results are impressive but the effort and coordination normally needed made me give up unless teamed with friends. Annoyingly if you fire this at a target that dies at the same time the fulcrum shift will fail. This is easily avoided most the time just by targeting something with lots of health but I learnt it the hard way.

A note for the ranged types: -
I have played this from the blasters perspective and I found the safest way to take advantage of fulcrum shift is to shadow the controller/defender at the start of a fight. Defenders tend to use it pretty quickly after the tank has established aggro so stick close to them and you should receive a nice buff. Controllers will probably drop a few of their control powers out first so be ready when you see them move in closer for the fulcrum shift. If you manage to get a good buff then laugh manically while clicking full auto and watch a pack of minions turn into mush.



Slotting: Worth slotting I’d say. I use 2 accuracy and 3 recharge.





Power Pools



Fitness
This is mandatory for a controller, even one with transference because of the level required for it.
I aimed to get stamina at 20 and I would recommend you do the same. The prerequisites are personal preference but I take swift over hurdle as it can act as a small counter to –speed effects.

Travel
I took super speed as it stacks with stealth for PvE invisibility (does not work in PvP!)
Hasten is not what it once was but I would rather have it over any other travel power prerequisite.
I took inertial reduction for vertical travel.

Concealment
Stealth is always useful on a squishy and with super speed is invisibility. Main use for this is getting stoney to take the initial aggro and have a better chance of getting him in melee range.
Helps loads in PvP as it makes the difference in getting that first hit in.


Hope that was of use to someone.
Have fun,
SlappyWack

(Justice server - SlappyWock - Earth/Kinetics level45)

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Overall a nice guide. I have an Earth/Kin on Liberty, only level 16 at the moment. I rolled him because I liked my idea for his name, "Dirt Napper."

One thing that needs to be stressed: Earth controllers are one of the worst solo characters. You could try to take Stone Prison slotted for damage, but there really is very little damage until Stoney. As you note, Stoney is not that great until he can be speed boosted and Fulcrum shifted. I find that I have to team anytime I am on with Dirt Napper. Since I added a pool power attack, I actually can solo in a pinch, but it is not really enough. (I temporarily took Flurry as a prerequisite for Super Speed instead of Hasten, but I plan to respec out. It gives me a little bit of damage to make use of Containment.)

Also, next time you write a guide, you may want to run it through your word processor first. You have a number of misspellings that distract from the points you are making. For Example:

[ QUOTE ]
(There is still a stain on my keyboard where I sneezed coffee out my noose because of this)

[/ QUOTE ]

How do you sneeze coffee out of a rope around your neck? Obviously you meant "nose," but it distracted from a funny moment.

I might suggest adding some more strategy suggestions, or things that you tell your teammates to get them to understand your powers and strategy. I have a series of macros which I use to explain what I am doing until the team gets the idea. You could also add some sample builds. The numbers on the powers are also nice, but not everyone is into numbers.

Generally, my Earth/Kin is pretty much a pure support character, and does not take much advantage of Containment. At my low level, I often lay down Quicksand between us and the group of baddies, then tell the blasters/defenders to pull them to us. This really takes advantage of Quicksand's -def. As soon as they run far enough into the Quicksand, I hit them with Stone Cages and use Fossilize on the tough guys. I then fire off Siphon Power, Siphon Speed and Transfusion as needed.

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Guide Links: Earth/Rad Guide, Illusion/Rad Guide, Electric Control