You could always just ask a friend who has a lvl 50 plant/kin.......but NOoooooooooo.
FYI- for my first pass (lvling to 50 0 to a few IOs) I went with power mastery. For my IO build I'll probably switch to psi or stone. Haven't decided yet.
@Mental Maden @Maden Mental
"....you are now tackle free for life."-ShoNuff
Stone is probably the best overall. Good damage, a melee focus, extra survivability, and a somewhat similar theme (earth, nature, plants?).
That said, I went Psi soly because Stone Armour is ugly.
I went with Power on mine. Power Boost is not only nice with Seeds, but also with Transfusion and Transference (PB'ed Transference will drain the crap out of anything short of an AV). I also happen to like Power Blast and Energy Torrent (you can hit more with the cone than a 15 ft AoE).
I have done Psi and Ice on other controllers. Both are good, but didn't fit my concept here. Have never done Stone due to the ugly.
Stone is ugly, but the shield is nice, particulary as it's defence. Fissure is a nice attack IMO, but Plant won't have a stun to stack it with. Still a good attack though (especially with FS 
but so will any APP AoE)
Personally, I think I would go Psi since Psi Tornado is always nice and you can stick the FF +recharge proc in it. Part-time mez protection is always valuable too.
Hope that helps,
Tux.
@Fail (Used to be @Tux) and @Tuxedo Infinitus Defiant/Freedom/Champion
Favourite Toons: Prosper [Ill/Rad] Controller :: Infinitus [Fire/Elec] Blaster :: Pocket Dynamo [Fire/Shield] Scr :: Fast [Cold/Sonic] Def ::
Inspire [Plant/Storm] Controller :: Quality - SS/Fire Brute :: Double Down [DP/Kin] Corr :: Pwnz [Fire/Cold] Corr :: Fail [Fire/Son] Corr
Digression: Post-35, does Stamina need the extra two slots?
I tend to try to match shapes of existing AoE mez/attack sequences with my AP AoE attack powers; only Stone doesn't really match with the Cone-AoE sequence that starts nearly every plant/ fight, unless you always scoot up in the middle. Then again, as a /kin, of course you're scooting in close.
Frost Breath and Energy Torrent (if it's the same dimension as a scrap's) are narrower than Seeds. It looks like Torrent is wider, and both of them fall short of matching seeds by 10'. I added Bile Spray to my Plant dom, and the Aim - Seeds - Fling Thorns - Bile Spray was quite pleasing. Can't get enough Bile, really.
Would the knock in Psionic Tornado or Energy Torrent (I don't know if either are 100%) be worthwhile as stopgaps for defending against adds? Psi Tornado has a late appearance as AoE, though.
Is APP color customization coming with i17 and power pool colorization? Depending on your leveling speed, Ice Armor can be made nigh invisible...
I would go earth since fissure is good and seismic smash helps with bosses
I find World of Confusion's radius disappointingly small. Only 8 feet, what's the deal? But it's the APP I'd take if I were avoiding the ugly armors.
I always end up with psi... mez protection is just soooo useful.
I haven't got my Plant/Kin to the epics yet but the plan is to go for Fire or Psi - on the basis that you can cap ranged def - I've heard that you can but not tried it in mids.
Capped ranged def with a resistance shield underlying it.
I wouldn't go Stone simply because Siesmic Smash is a hold and Fissure has a stun in it so would actually diminsh some of the damage from Seeds.
L50s: Tanks: Cryofission - Ice/EM - Dr Celsius - Fire/Ice - Saint George - SD/SS | Controllers: Psichosis - Ill/Kin - Major Chaos - Ill/Stm | Scrappers - Neutron Crusader - DM/SR
Currently Levelling: Angelic Blade - BS/WP Scrapper | Seeds of Destruction - Plant/Kin Controller
I suspected as much . . . the opinions in this thread are varied, but seem to mostly focus on Earth, Psi or Primal.
I have been leaning towards either Psi or Stone, but Ice is not far behind. This character has mainly been leveling up in a duo with an Elec/Shield scrapper. The concept was to develop large amounts of AoE damage, letting the Scrapper gather up groups, controlling them with Seeds+Roots, Damage buff followed by lots of AoE damage. The last couple of levels, we have had a few others join our duo.
The playstyle is kind of choppy. The scrapper gathers a group, I get in position and hit them with Seeds+Roots, then I use my siphon powers and he hits his AoE damage. Then we try to take out the survivors and I heal up the hits he (and I) have taken, if any. . . . then we may have to wait for Seeds to recharge before doing it all again. If we didn't wait, I just made do with my other powers . . . but with Carrion Creepers, it is easier to fill the "gap."
For solo play, I think Stone would win. The ability to do single target damage would be key, and Fissure's fast recharging AoE would also be important. But for Team play, I'm leaning towards Psi, as the mez protection will allow me to keep healing and buffing my teammate(s). I have noticed a few times that I got mezzed, and unless I had a breakfree, my teammate started taking a lot of damage.
Ice is tempting because of the cone and Rain damage, and AoE nature of Seeds. Throw Seeds, Roots, Fulcrum Shift, Roots, Frost Breath, Roots. That should add up to a lot of AoE damage, all without having to move much. Add Ice Storm if needed. And Hibernate is great if I remember to activate it in time.
The problem I have with Primal is that Power Boost may cause the confusion from Seeds to last a long time, but with proper slotting, Seeds can already be perma. Torrent's cone seems kind of narrow to me, and there is no other AoE damage power. Fire is nice damage but not much else to add for a Plant/Kin over other APP sets.
So, I'm leaning towards Psi since I have a teammate/teammates who will do a lot more damage than I will with APP powers.
LOCAL MAN! The most famous hero of all. There are more newspaper stories about me than anyone else. "Local Man wins Medal of Honor." "Local Man opens Animal Shelter." "Local Man Charged with..." (Um, forget about that one.)
Guide Links: Earth/Rad Guide, Illusion/Rad Guide, Electric Control
Quote:
Bind your emergency power (Hibernate, Phase Shift, or even a Break Free if you're playing a squishy) to your middle mouse button. Clicking it becomes second nature.|
Originally Posted by Local_Man
And Hibernate is great if I remember to activate it in time.
|
As far as an ancillary for Plant/Kin, you can't go wrong with //Stone. Sure, the visuals are ugly, but you can always dual-build into Psi or Ice, if that's your thing. The big thing is that Kin is built to augment a high-damage playstyle, so Stone or Fire come in handy. Stone wins out over Fire because of the armor, but Fire can work, too, if you have enough influence to cap both range and AoE defense (I can be done). With seeds of Confusion, you won't be taking too many melee attacks, anyways.
Keep in mind that defense counts as a layer of mez protection. That which isn't hitting you isn't mezzing you. Bind a Break Free to some slot in your power tray or to your middle mouse button and click that when you get mezzed. You'll be back up and running with the group in no time. The toggle change from a year ago makes mez more of an annoyance than an actual problem.
Quote:
Actually, I use an 8-button mouse, and I have a standard way of setting up my binds using CityBinder so that most powers that I can't access easily from the lower trays with the first 6 or 7 number keys get bound (binded?) to a mouse button or a button combo. One button is my travel power, and I link certain buttons to unused keys to gather my binds. Not to say that there might be a better way to do it, but I have pretty quick access to any power I need if I have prepared the way.|
Originally Posted by Lacrimosa
Bind your emergency power (Hibernate, Phase Shift, or even a Break Free if you're playing a squishy) to your middle mouse button. Clicking it becomes second nature.
As far as an ancillary for Plant/Kin, you can't go wrong with //Stone. Sure, the visuals are ugly, but you can always dual-build into Psi or Ice, if that's your thing. The big thing is that Kin is built to augment a high-damage playstyle, so Stone or Fire come in handy. Stone wins out over Fire because of the armor, but Fire can work, too, if you have enough influence to cap both range and AoE defense (I can be done). With seeds of Confusion, you won't be taking too many melee attacks, anyways. Keep in mind that defense counts as a layer of mez protection. That which isn't hitting you isn't mezzing you. Bind a Break Free to some slot in your power tray or to your middle mouse button and click that when you get mezzed. You'll be back up and running with the group in no time. The toggle change from a year ago makes mez more of an annoyance than an actual problem. |
I'm not expecting this to ultimately be a min-max character. Probably take her up to 50, and try to come up with a reasonably priced "good enough" build that probably will not include a bunch of carefully planned IO sets designed to get max Defense. I have too many characters to want to max them all out.
But you are correct that added damage is an important factor. Kinetics makes up for its lack of defensive powers and debuffing by buffing damage. That's the main reason Stone and Fire are in the running. I just need to decide whether Damage is more important than Mez Protection on a team-oriented Plant/Kin.
LOCAL MAN! The most famous hero of all. There are more newspaper stories about me than anyone else. "Local Man wins Medal of Honor." "Local Man opens Animal Shelter." "Local Man Charged with..." (Um, forget about that one.)
Guide Links: Earth/Rad Guide, Illusion/Rad Guide, Electric Control
I wonder how many mezzes will actually get to you if you cap out S/L defenses. Looking at it, I'd say that S/L provides mitigation against a good amount of groups, but not to the level of the psi APP.
If you were willing to blow, say, 400 million influence, you could cap out your Range/AoE defense and go //Fire. Five sets of Zephyr will run you about 250m if you take your time shopping. The Steadfast Protection +3% defense will be about 50m, and the rest shouldn't cost you more than 100m to push you over the Ranged/AoE cap. This would give you the best of both words, as you'd be virtually free from mez (barring Dominate/Mesmerize and any +to-hit, say from Nemesis), but capable of tossing out that extra damage.
400m is actually pretty easy to come across, now, if you save your money. You wouldn't have to grab any purples, so the build would actually be relatively cheap. Free from Mez and tossing out ridiculous loads of damage? I'd say it's worth it.
Then again, you said that this character is largely casual and that you're not up to min-maxing her out. If that's the case, I'd go //Psi. You can get a decent amount of damage out of it, and mez protection is especially important if you're constantly hopping from toon to toon. Going from a scrapper to a controller and forgetting that your new toon doesn't have mez defense is a total pain in the butt.
The largest thing I'm always concerned about with my Kin in groups is that I never feel I'm getting my full use out of Fulcrum Shift because the squishies never come into melee and the melee toons don't have high-radius AoEs or are largely single-target oriented. When I can actually throw out the damage, that mitigates the futile feeling, somewhat.
I have to say that I'm really enjoying my Plant/Kin, "Flora the Explorer," who is currently level 29. I have a Fire/Kin up to 42, and I haven't had the drive to get her to 50. But this Plant/Kin is really fun. I'm finding that I really like controllers that take some strategy, and this one does. I really rely upon my teammates to gather groups for the optimal Seeds use. Then Roots to hold everyone in place. Then I try to get the teammates to hold off on their big AoE damage powers until I can get off a Siphon Power to buff their damage.
It really helps that I picked up Increase Density mainly as a mule for a -knockback Steadfast. My biggest challenge with this character is when we get additional foes coming in (aggroed nearby or an ambush) while Seeds is recharging. That, and tough bosses. It has OK damage over time, but taking down a boss takes a while. That will get better with Fulcrum Shift, but it will still be DoT.
Still trying to decide on an APP set:
Stone? Seismic Smash will make up for the weak single target damage of a Plant controller -- after Fulcrum Shift, this should be significant. Rock Armor is defense-based but ugly, and Earth's Embrace, while nice, is not NEEDED. Single target ranged attack is SLOW, and the AoE is short range. But since I'll generally be in short range, that works, and it recharges pretty quickly. The added stun in Fissure is less of a benefit for this character since she doesn't have another stun to stack with it.
Ice? Two AoE damage powers on a character who is already AoE damage focused. Hibernate is a great panic button power. Good single target blast and rarely resisted damage type. Shield is Defense-based and looks only a little better than Rock.
Fire? Good AoE damage, good single target blast, good damage type. Self-rez and Endurance Recovery? Might be nice but are skippable. Fire Shield is resistance-based and looks OK.
Psi? Mez protection!! Makes this very tempting. Damage type is Psi, resisted by Robots and a few others. Single target blast is OK, AoE is OK DoT, Shield is Resistance based but looks OK. World of Confusion? Haven't tried it, but this might be the place to try it, to stack confuses with Seeds. I have the Psi APP on my Fire/Rad, but no WoC. This is very tempting.
Primal has Power Boost, to extend Seeds for a long time. Other than that, this set doesn't offer much to make it stand out from other sets. Good Resistance armor, good single target blast with some knockback, and a cone-type AoE. It is really weak on AoE damage. Conserve Power? Not really needed much on a Kinetics.
What do y'all think? Here's the build I'm looking at so far.
Hero Plan by Mids' Hero Designer 1.601
http://www.cohplanner.com/
Click this DataLink to open the build!
Flora the Explorer: Level 40 Natural Controller
Primary Power Set: Plant Control
Secondary Power Set: Kinetics
Power Pool: Flight
Power Pool: Fitness
Power Pool: Speed
Hero Profile:
Level 1: Strangler -- Decim-Acc/Dmg(A), Decim-Dmg/EndRdx(3), Decim-Dmg/Rchg(15), Decim-Acc/EndRdx/Rchg(23), Decim-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(31), Hold-I(40)
Level 1: Transfusion -- Nictus-Heal(A), Nictus-Heal/HP/Regen/Rchg(5), Nictus-Acc/Heal(7), Nictus-Acc/EndRdx/Heal/HP/Regen(19), Nictus-Acc/EndRdx/Rchg(31)
Level 2: Roots -- Posi-Acc/Dmg(A), Posi-Dmg/Rchg(3), Posi-Dmg/EndRdx(7), Posi-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(15), GravAnch-Acc/Rchg(17), GravAnch-Hold%(31)
Level 4: Siphon Power -- Acc-I(A), Acc-I(5)
Level 6: Air Superiority -- Mako-Acc/Dmg(A), Mako-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(13), Mako-Acc/EndRdx/Rchg(34)
Level 8: Seeds of Confusion -- CoPers-Conf/Rchg(A), CoPers-Acc/Conf/Rchg(9), CoPers-Acc/Rchg(9), CoPers-Conf/EndRdx(11), CoPers-Conf(11), Pplx-Acc/Rchg(13)
Level 10: Siphon Speed -- Acc-I(A), TmpRdns-Acc/Slow(17), TmpRdns-EndRdx/Rchg/Slow(19), RechRdx-I(23)
Level 12: Hurdle -- Jump-I(A)
Level 14: Fly -- Flight-I(A)
Level 16: Health -- Heal-I(A)
Level 18: Vines -- HO:Endo(A), HO:Endo(34), RechRdx-I(34), RechRdx-I(37)
Level 20: Stamina -- EndMod-I(A), EndMod-I(21), EndMod-I(21)
Level 22: Speed Boost -- EndMod-I(A)
Level 24: Hasten -- RechRdx-I(A), RechRdx-I(25), RechRdx-I(25)
Level 26: Carrion Creepers -- Posi-Acc/Dmg(A), Posi-Dmg/Rchg(27), Posi-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(27), Det'tn-Dmg/Rchg(29), RechRdx-I(29), Posi-Dam%(40)
Level 28: Increase Density -- S'fstPrt-ResKB(A)
Level 30: Spirit Tree -- Heal-I(A)
Level 32: Fly Trap -- ExRmnt-Acc/Rchg(A), ExRmnt-Acc/Dmg(33), ExRmnt-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(33), ExRmnt-EndRdx/Dmg/Rchg(33), S'bndAl-Dmg/Rchg(40)
Level 35: Transference -- Efficacy-EndMod(A), Efficacy-EndMod/Rchg(36), Efficacy-EndMod/Acc/Rchg(36), Efficacy-Acc/Rchg(36), Efficacy-EndMod/Acc(37), Efficacy-EndMod/EndRdx(37)
Level 38: Fulcrum Shift -- Acc-I(A), Acc-I(39), RechRdx-I(39), RechRdx-I(39)
Level 41: [Empty]
Level 44: [Empty]
Level 47: [Empty]
Level 49: [Empty]
------------
Level 1: Brawl -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Sprint -- Empty(A)
Level 2: Rest -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Containment
I will probably add a Chance for Build Up into Fly Trap, and then maybe add some slots to Air Sup and/or Spirit Tree. The build looks to be reasonably priced, as the purples are cheap ones. It has perma-Creepers but not perma Hasten.
LOCAL MAN! The most famous hero of all. There are more newspaper stories about me than anyone else. "Local Man wins Medal of Honor." "Local Man opens Animal Shelter." "Local Man Charged with..." (Um, forget about that one.)
Guide Links: Earth/Rad Guide, Illusion/Rad Guide, Electric Control