Best Secondary for Earth?

As a pure team support I'd go /Forcefields

Earth is a pretty busy primary and pulls a lot of aggro with all of the AoE.

Forcefield will turn everyone into tanks including Stoney as well as giving you some defence with Dispersion bubble.

If I had the choice of only one controller for a tough mission it would be an Earth/FF.

I had rolled a Earth/Storm but I am thinking of waiting till Issue 16 and rerolling to have Earth/Cold Domination which seems like will be new alternative toolbox to Rad

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Originally Posted by Zwillinger Quote: 16. Has Paragon Studios redefined "player" to require your mouse to subscribe separately from your keyboard? If your mouse has greater processing power than your gfx card, the answer is yes.

Hey, just telling you what I've seen, and seen repeatedly. My tornadoes (no KB enhancements) tossing around targets with AT LEAST two cages on them from two different trollers. Usually someone's Fire cages or Ice Cages and my Earth Cages, since those are easier to spot graphically. Plant's tend to hide in the poo, so to speak, and Grav's immob (if I recall correctly?) doesn't prevent KB anyways.

And I tend to spam Cages on my Earth/Storm since once you've got so many drop powers, once everything is out and active, its all thats left to do. I ESPECIALLY spam cages when I've dropped a Tornado into the mix, since I don't want to be That Annoying Knockback Troller.

Is it possible that if a Tornado lingers/pulses on a target long enough, its +Knockback will stack higher than Cages -Knockback can control?

MaHaBone23,

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Originally Posted by Local_Man As Thorm said, Stone Cages has -knockback only for 12 seconds, even though the Immobilize works longer. If you want to keep foes in place for Tornado, you need to keep re-applying Stone Cages in less than 12 seconds. Knowing that the -knockback only lasts 12 sec can be useful. You can throw down Stone Cages, wait your 12 seconds and then use Freezing Rain and/or Earthquake for the knockdown effect while the foes are still immobilized. This can be effective for chaining AoE controls . . . Stalagmites + Stone Cages to start, then follow up with Earthquake when the stun runs out even if the immobilize hasn't.

Local_Man's answer is correct, the -knockback is for a limited number of seconds which is not increased with immobilize enhancements. If you do not spam the cages, tornado will cause them to fly away, cages and all.

I am definitely making Earth/Cold for i16, along with a few others. It should be a nice combo.

Lewis

I really like Earth / Sonic. It's still a lowbie, but so far, I'm seeing a lot of potential with it.

Earth / Storm is awsome too. ( But I really like /Storm )

If you are using Tornado, it's best to reapply stone cages as often as it comes up. You will probably miss one mob on each application, so unless you want your Tornado haring off after mobs you missed, you need to keep throwing cages to guarantee overlap within the 10 ( or 12 ) second KB suppression. I tend to only pull out Tornado on small Teams, or solo, because on large teams, you will miss a mob, and Tornado will follow that guy into the next spawn. Every. Single. Time. Well pretty much every time

Other people report different experience of this, but mine has been as stated.

Any Earth/Sonic builds out there? There's one in the guide section, but the link is down.

http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=116921

Hot Buttered Soul's guide. Great stuff.

Have to put in my vote for /Storm too. It makes you feel powerful, can occasionally be hilarious, thematically fits, and is flexible enough to fill the gaps in Earth's/ weaknesses (IE: less damage, less immediate control)

Okay I'm going to differ from nearly everyone on here and say Force Field. Why? Because the -defense debuffs in stone controls attacks tend to pull aggro all the way from frickin Jupiter. You want to get the attention of every baddie in the zone? Throw some stone cages out and you got it! The +defense of Force Field helps mitigate all that incoming aggro making it bounce harmlessly off of you. Not to mention you have built in mez protection from everything but sleeps from dispersion bubble. I would further recommend Earth Mastery epic for more smashing/lethal defense from rock armor (stacked with maneuvers/CJ/weave and some IOs you should hit softcap easily), a great aoe damage source in fissure (which is beautiful with posi's blast 5 slotted and sixth slot of Force Feedback +rech proc), and for a great self heal in Earths Embrace. My main is Fire/Force Field/Earth and with enough work on the build he can kill almost as fast as a fire/kin but plays like a tank. It is very very good stuff.

My second recommendation would be for a Earth/Cold Dom in issue 16. Animated Stone already has nearly capped resistances, which can be made even closer with sovereign right procs. What it lacks is defense which Cold Dom and Force Field can both provide to round out it's armors and turn it into a real beast. Cold Dom also has good -regen (Benumb) and -resist (Sleet) and aoe +recov (Heat Loss). The only thing it lacks over Rad Emissions and/or Force Field is a self heal on the second and mez protection on the first, both of which can be fixed with epics (stone for heal, psi for mez).