Concepts and powerset pairings for earth assault
By
DRAIDE,
Posted on: 2009-09-13 21:57 in Dominators
I've been tossing around a few concepts as well:
- Rogue Legacy Chain Tellus
- Fire/Earth or Earth/Earth for a Magma Elemental
- Mind/Earth with the crystal theme for /Earth ... new ager gone bad
Quote:
Possibly on that regard, but in order to leverage the tiny aoe of mudpots and the tiny aoe of fissure (much smaller than troller version) you pretty much need something that draws the enemies into a clump.|
Originally Posted by ShoeTattoo
Plant/earth might not synergize as well as other sets with earth assault, though, because plant's pet immobilizes frequently, giving -knockback, and knockup/back/down is a frequently appearing damage mitigation feature of earth assault. Thematically it seems like a good pairing, though, and the superior mitigation in earth assault might help to keep plant's relatively fragile pet upright a little better. |
So while plant can potentially negate the popcorn effect of earth assault it is probably the best set for actually getting anything out of the AoE's.
Plant/Earth would also work well for a renegade DE creature. Or you could tint the Plant powers weird, and choose the Lava skin for /Earth with a color like green or blue for a pollution/radioactive waste empowered baddie.
Arc #40529 : The Furies of the Earth
Mine is probably going to be a grav/earth. On test, I used the lava skin for earth and colored both the grav and earth powers red and black - the general idea was some sort of blood mage.
@MuonNeutrino
Student, Gamer, Altaholic, and future Astronomer.
This is what it means to be a tank!
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Obscure Blade
Plant/Earth would also work well for a renegade DE creature. Or you could tint the Plant powers weird, and choose the Lava skin for /Earth with a color like green or blue for a pollution/radioactive waste empowered baddie.
|
It could be the enemy to your Plant/Storm/Earth- Captain Planet Controller!
I've been planning a Plant/Earth. Your KB will be relevant for most of your early career so that means don't take Roots. By the time you have Fly Trap you should have Carrion Creepers. I'd imagine alternating the Creepers, and Seeds would pretty much lighten the load of KB being your mitigation. So basically KB is your big mitigation with Seeds until 26-32, and then it should lighten up. I still don't plan to take Roots. I could care less if Venus uses Entangle. By then I'll be alternating Seismic Smash, and Strangler. Held mobs don't need to do the popcorn dance.
My other plan was Earth/Earth, and again skipping the AoE Immob. Why shoot yourself in the foot? This goes beyond the aggro, but this combo would have knockdown in spades. There is no reason to turn that off with Stone Cages. The only thing that holds me back from this combo is the lack of clumping that confusion creates. Though Quicksand, and Earthquake would be helpful, just not confusion helpful. Hmm...
I'm still pretty torn on those two. Both sets are great, and have advantages. I think it will boil down to what I can put together as a concept/costume to fit the name I have best.
The biggest hurdle is leveling this character up. I'll need to use that Stone Spears, Stone Mallet... and.... and.... Air Superiority? Why the heck do we have to wait so long to get Heavy Mallet, and SS? Is Hurl Boulder seriously supposed to be my filler? Tremor? Give me a break! I'll take Tremor because I can find uses for it, but man what a disappointing choice. Ugh, and now this thought takes me back to Plant/ just because it can do more damage than Earth/.
Decisions...
I've been heavily considering a Fire/Earth. Seems like the melee focus of the secondary would go well with Hot Feet + Fire Imps.
Having Vengeance and Fallout slotted for recharge means never having to say you're sorry.
Quote:
And with the new magma fx options for earth, it'll look good together too.
|
Originally Posted by Kelenar
I've been heavily considering a Fire/Earth. Seems like the melee focus of the secondary would go well with Hot Feet + Fire Imps.
|
Earth/Earth: Mad pastry chef with dough control powers.
...What?
Quote:
I was so psyched to do and Earth/Earth that I never even considered any other possibilities. Fire/Earth with a Lava theme would look awesome, and play pretty well, too. Might have to do that.
|
Originally Posted by Kelenar
I've been heavily considering a Fire/Earth. Seems like the melee focus of the secondary would go well with Hot Feet + Fire Imps.
|
Quote:
This is a problem with many of the assault sets - fire, ice, thorns and now earth all start with a single target blast, single target melee, AE (cone or PBAE) and a second single target blast - which means to get a decent attack chain that doesn't have you running in and out of combat you have to rely on the primary and slot up a single target immob (or go mind so you can take mesmerize and levitate), dip into a pool for another melee power or waste a lot of end using the AE power in a single target attack chain. |
Originally Posted by HK008
The biggest hurdle is leveling this character up. I'll need to use that Stone Spears, Stone Mallet... and.... and.... Air Superiority? Why the heck do we have to wait so long to get Heavy Mallet, and SS? Is Hurl Boulder seriously supposed to be my filler? Tremor? Give me a break! I'll take Tremor because I can find uses for it, but man what a disappointing choice. Ugh, and now this thought takes me back to Plant/ just because it can do more damage than Earth/.
Decisions... |
This is one of my pet peeves with the dominator AT and the reason electric and energy are my favorite secondaries - or mind/anything since mesmerize and levitate are basically ranged attacks with a sleep and knockup respectively.
Globals: @Midnight Mystique/@Magik13
Quote:
It's compounded on earth assault because hurl is just a horrible attack (looks good though).|
Originally Posted by EricHough
This is a problem with many of the assault sets - fire, ice, thorns and now earth all start with a single target blast, single target melee, AE (cone or PBAE) and a second single target blast - which means to get a decent attack chain that doesn't have you running in and out of combat you have to rely on the primary and slot up a single target immob (or go mind so you can take mesmerize and levitate), dip into a pool for another melee power or waste a lot of end using the AE power in a single target attack chain.
This is one of my pet peeves with the dominator AT and the reason electric and energy are my favorite secondaries - or mind/anything since mesmerize and levitate are basically ranged attacks with a sleep and knockup respectively. |
By 10:
ice - 2 ranged, very fast animation attacks, 1 decent blap.
thorn - can use fling in an attack chain (unlike the pbaoes) and while impale is horrendous as an attack it is actually better than hurl lol.
Fire - 2 fast ranged attacks, 1 decent blap, awesome cone.
Earth - 2 slow-*** ranged attacks, 1 decent blap, very slow pbaoe.
I agree 100% that elec and nrg start out way better than the other sets and are much more user friendly. Somewhere that intuitiveness was lost though and the newest set takes the worst design principles and adds even more lameness.
Pretty much gotta pl earth to 29 imo at which point it gets fun...though generally less effective than everything else still.
Quote:
This really highlights what I was talking about there. I went through the early levels just fine on /Fire with Flares, Fire Breath, Fire Blast, and Char. Yeah, Flares stinks right now, but at least it animates sometime today! Tremor has a 3.5s cast time? That's my choice by level 4? Hurl Boulder is horrible compared to most of the sets. I would have liked Earth to take the idea of /Elec and bloom early. Give me my Mallets by 10, and I can wait on SS until 18. I do look forward to the set as a whole, but leveling this will be probably be awful. So I really want to be happy with my Primary because it is going to carry the dead weight until the mid-levels at least. More so than usual.
|
Originally Posted by Frosticus
It's compounded on earth assault because hurl is just a horrible attack (looks good though).
By 10: ice - 2 ranged, very fast animation attacks, 1 decent blap. thorn - can use fling in an attack chain (unlike the pbaoes) and while impale is horrendous as an attack it is actually better than hurl lol. Fire - 2 fast ranged attacks, 1 decent blap, awesome cone. Earth - 2 slow-*** ranged attacks, 1 decent blap, very slow pbaoe. I agree 100% that elec and nrg start out way better than the other sets and are much more user friendly. Somewhere that intuitiveness was lost though and the newest set takes the worst design principles and adds even more lameness. Pretty much gotta pl earth to 29 imo at which point it gets fun...though generally less effective than everything else still. |
To the OP I made a Mind / Earth and called him Birthstone
The earth powers I made crystal and each power was a diffrent color to match a birthstone.
It wasn't a great idea for a character but, I figured it used the color custimization to its fullest.
In desparate need for a background to my Grav/Earth I made up something about a kid disappearing and reappearing modified by the henchmen of Rularuu (In fact I didn't know much about that when I made it up, I actually thought Rularuu was a planet - now having read the story about Rularuu the concept still fits ok-ish I guess). I guess the ability to open portals (wormhole) and dimensions stuff from grav is pretty obvious. I went with the crystal theme on the earth Assault, calling the material violite, which crystallizes from a secretion of his skin. Kept everything in different shades of purple, which looks rather cool.
I went and made "The Contaminated Man"; a pollution/toxin themed Fire/Earth. Green lava-themed hammers, green Char, purple lava themed Tremor and Earthquake, etc. He's all green and purple and blue himself; zombie face with the bio-organic skin for the torso.
Arc #40529 : The Furies of the Earth
I made my fire/earth dom an insane artist who wraps people up in globs of magical paint and wields weapons of colored clay and glass.
Power Spectrum ftw.
I made a Mind/Earth and called him Gebeb after the Egyptian god of the Earth, snakes and the underworld.
Mind/Earth seems to do single target quite well at low levels - I think I will crank the difficulty way up on this guy.
I too made a Mind/Earth: Demented Clown with Telekinetic/Telepathic powers that trained with the circus strongman as well. Perfect in body in mind, except for the dementia and dwarfism.
Anyway, so far it's really fun to play. The knock(up) from Levitate, Stone Spears (80%), and Stone Mallet (50%?) does well for soft mitigation and after picking up Hasten, my attack ST damage has been pretty steady. I was disheartened when I saw the lack luster radii of /Earth's AoE's, so I've planned to just be a single target blapp-dom with perma-dom relatively in the realm of possibility.
Senith - 50 Dark/Regen Scrap - Triumph
Tripper - 41 Illusion/Emp Troller- Triumph
Dark Senith - 50 Necro/Dark MM - Triumph
Frayed- 42 Elec/Elec Brute - Triumph
Hellfire Harlequin- 38 Fire/SR Scrap - Triumph
I have a plant/earth at 40. I am having a lot of fun with the damage on holds, but I believe that the melee requirements make it fragile. I did not take medicine and plan on tough/weave.
Earth assault is definitely a departure from past assault sets, with a stronger focus on melee and a more "tankish" or "brutish" feel to the powers. When paired up with color and power customization, there's a lot of flexibility to make interesting villains using earth assault.
I've got a handful of ideas to start:
1. Devouring earth critter, or offshoot: earth/earth, or mind/earth (could be like a boulder or sentry, or a devoured)
2. Mud wizard: gravity/earth (singularity can be tinted to look like dust or mud)
3. "Ice Golem": ice/earth (If you tint the crystals from earth assault white & blue, you've got a melee-centric ice/ice villain)
4. Lava creature, or Pumi Magma, from the Hollows: ('nuf said)
5. Evil druid with a grudge against mankind: plant/earth
Plant/earth might not synergize as well as other sets with earth assault, though, because plant's pet immobilizes frequently, giving -knockback, and knockup/back/down is a frequently appearing damage mitigation feature of earth assault. Thematically it seems like a good pairing, though, and the superior mitigation in earth assault might help to keep plant's relatively fragile pet upright a little better.