/Earth: SOLO AV Killer!

I decided to try some solo runs against AVs for a couple of reasons. 1) because I thought Liliceae's AV videos were interesting and they put the thought in my head and 2) because of Dark Currents post about /earth being a good choice against AVs and the thread being dismissed because it was a team.

Here is a little background if you care: I did not set out to make an AV killer. When /earth came out some of us decided to do an all dom /earth team. The primary was open and I picked ice only because I had played every dom primary/secondary to 50 including ice but I had only done ice once & it had been awhile. Plus being able to customize powers to make /earth look like ice mallets, etc. I decided to make a polar bear looking creature.

We leveled up and I was building for permadom as I do all my doms because that's what I like and with some simple market work I have the funds to do so. I was not perma until 50 and I did not have any purples and was at around 85% recharge.

When DarkCurrent made the videos it was with a small team and I think his whole point was that seismic smash made for nice control stacking while hitting hard. I was one of the players in the videos and the post got me thinking that with some minor adjustments to my build, I might be able to solo some AVs.

Ice would not normally be my choice for this scenario but I was going to work with most of my current IOs I had and do it for what I consider cheap. I got rid of Artic Air in exchange for Mud Pots and got rid of the fighting pool in exchange for leadership. I also switched from Mako to Ghost Widow for the patron powers and picked up the sleep to slot a cheap purple set.

This put me at 90% recharge after all of the changes and I had gained some damage buffs in Assault and Soul Drain and given up some resistance and defense.

Anyways here are the videos I doubled the speed so they would not be so large and take so long to watch. I'm not pounding my chest because it's nothing special and I'm not trying to compare to anyone else. It was more or less something to do besides rolling a new character after the /earth doms hit 50. Also these are my first game videos so if they are not the quality you expect please forgive.

I went with Luminary and Woodsman first as these were the ones from Dark Currents post.

Luminary took just under 17 minutes. It took 2 tries and I'm blaming my first failed attempt with Lum on Hack N Slash as he started chatting me up towards the end of the fight
http://www.wegame.com/watch/i-earth-...-double-speed/

Woodsman took 2 tries
My first attempt with Woods failed due to him getting free and tooting his horn for all his little woodland creatures to come to his aid. Fun nonetheless.
http://www.wegame.com/watch/solo-woo...-attempt-fail/

2nd Try
http://www.wegame.com/watch/i-earth-...-double-speed/

Also, Im working on some other AV's. I made one run at Ghost Widow and had her down to a quarter health when my Hold missed 3 times in a row and she got loose and siphoned most of her health back from mine and I didn't have the time to widdle her down again. I'll give her another try along with some other AV's but I can see why it took Lilicae awhile on her as she is very difficult.

Feh, she's only level 50 and you used your pets.

CHEATER!

Well done Hirsh.

I need to level up and slot my Mind/Earth. My Mind/Fire used to tear AV's apart.

Why was the AV perma-held?

what would you have gone, if not ice?

IMO the thing to consider in the primary is the cast time of the single target hold because it will be about the only thing from your primary you will be using. You need to cast your hold whenever it is up and immediately. Once you throw your hold you will be hard pressed to get off 2 of anything else before you should be clicking that hold again. If you get impatient and try to get in an extra attack the AV will break the hold. I also allowed for the Domination Animation, Hasten Clicks, Powerboost, Pet Resummons and Soul Drain. If you have to go through any of these animations I think it's best to wait to fire your hold before you try to get an extra attack off.

The cast time for Block of Ice is 1.87 s which is on the longer side. Fire and Mind holds are 1.07 and 1.1 which does not seem like much difference but I think you could use more attacks and shorten the time it takes on these.

I think Fire would bring some extra non-click damage with HotFeet and the Imps. Mind would probably be the safest as you have backup Mez if you miss your holds but it would take a little longer without a pet. If the AV calls pets or you keep surrounding enemies around for your fight they may contribute for a short while but they always seem to kill each other off rather quickly.

My first attempts I was using the AOE hold whenever it was up but I found it was better saved for when the single target missed.

Other then that you might use the immob and line of sight if the AV gets lose to try to regain your holds. Right now I have Decimations in the immob for the recharge. If I had the money I'd get the purple Immob set and use the chance to hold proc for extra stacking. If you notice in the videos the electric ball hold is up a decent amount and that is from the Lockdown chance for Mag 2 proc.

I think if I were going to make a designated AV killer from scratch I would go either Fire/Earth/Soul or Fire/Fire/Soul. I like the fact that /Earth has Powerboost, Mudpots and Seismic Smash.

All of this is just speculation of course. I have capable doms with other powersets but I have not tried to Solo AV's with them. I hope that others that have tried this with the other power sets will chime in.

Nice job Hirsh. Good idea making the vid at double speed too. Nice to see that Ice Control can deliver despite the long activation time on Block of Ice.

I've only watched the Lumi video so far (slow download), and it looked like you had a very solid hold on her. I'm curious to hear how Ghost Widow goes for you. My biggest issue was that she has a few attacks which could one-shot me with their DoT. The healing back up again was a definite pain also.

Good work. I knew it was possible, but was too lazy to bother soloing one myself.

One thing I'll add is I think it can be done by a non-perma /earth as well. Just the margin of error is much slimmer. The hold from Seismic Smash makes it possible. I think an earth/earth or grav/earth would be able to permahold even more easily with stoney or singy throwing in their holds. Jack has freezing touch, so that helps ice, but he has one extra attack, so his cycling is less.

Oh, and eat some reds next time.

And another thought... do you have room for some Hami Os in that build? Put mez/dmg in BoI.

Hey, cool.

Heroes, Villains ♦ Reviews ♦ Retrospect

I finally got some game time in between all of the activities that surround Christmas.
I had unfinished business with Ghost Widow since she defeated me in my first 2 tries.

What went wrong on the first 2 were that she got loose and heals a quarter of her health back. I was not getting one shotted because she was going after the pets first but she can make you intangible or something and has time to heal back up. When she does this I just go ahead and quit as I don't have the patience to work her back down or do 2 runs in a row.

Anyway, 3rd time was the charm. I used Demonic and Force of Nature to open the fight and this time I took some advice and took some reds inspirations to speed up the killing.

Also I used the Power Analyzer that you can craft and kept it up on the left side to monitor my hold stacking. I don't think with the video reduction you can make out the numbers but you get the general idea.

Here is the link.
http://www.wegame.com/watch/i-earth-...-double-speed/

Way to Hirsch..I I knew this was totally possible w/Earth Assualt.

I've been off for awhile on my grav/earth but can't wait to give him a try against AV's.

I'm curious, how are the AV hit points bested? Do Dominators just have that kind of DPS or does holding them knock off their regen?