I have an earth/rad and earth/TA at fifty, love them both and I'd recommend them to anyone wanting to make an earthie. That said, I've wanted an earth/storm forever and have just put it off because I want to work with other sets first.
Any of those three will not disappoint.
@Mental Maden @Maden Mental
"....you are now tackle free for life."-ShoNuff
Earth/Storm is indeed very good; very low damage solo pre-32 especially if you lack vet attacks, but very powerful and spectacular otherwise.
Another possibility since you intend to team with a scrapper and tank would be Earth/Sonic. The shields will make them tougher, and you can slap the Sonic Disruption -resistance toggle on one of them.
Arc #40529 : The Furies of the Earth
I love my Earth/Rad . . . as you should be able to tell from the guide in my sig. I have two Earth/Storms on different servers . . . one in the 40's and the other in the low 30's. Storm adds so much fun to an Earth controller, with the ability to stack stuns, stack knockdowns, stack slows. Plus, you get some badly needed damage in the 30's.
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
Lvled an earth/storm and it is just plain fun. It gets great after 32 and is visually rewarding. However i also love the idea of earth/rad after playing ill/rad for so long, ensuring that the anchor and all affected mobs actually stay in place for my rad debuffs.....thats just too good. I think an earth/rad would be really rewarding as part of a dedicated team as it would be an amazing debuffer. I bet you could do some truly awesome color combos between earth and rad too with like the rad looking like volcanic gasses or something. Local_man has an awesome earth/rad guide. you should check that out.
My earth/thermal is one of my favourite alts 
A brilliant support toon and fantastic on taskforces.
Short and simple. Earth / Rad lacks the DPS. I picked up the sword temp power from Croatoa (sp) and Air Superiority just to have some sort of decent attacks. You will without a doubt if NOT in a team go nuts trying to solo Earth Rad. Once I got Rocky I slotted him up to max to get more DPS going. But again I assure you if I looked at my play time on my earth rad it would probably be almost double some other toons I play just from the deaths.
But in a group they shine.
1. Why Soft Cap is Important : http://dechskaison.blogspot.com/2011...important.html
2. Limits: http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Limits
3. Attack Mechanics: http://wiki.cohtitan.com/wiki/Attack_Mechanics
4. Rule of Five: http://wiki.cohtitan.com/wiki/Rule_o...e_Law_of_Fives
Earth/storm (excellent control, decent damage) and Earth/TA (uber troller) are both solid combinations.
-Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. - Albert Einstein.
-I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use. - Galileo Galilei
-When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty. - Thomas Jefferson
If you don't mind buffing I'd go with /FF.
Personaly I find my Earth/Rad to be an aggro magnet having so much AoE. Going FF would give you some personal mitigation, reduce the aggro and still allow you to be very effective.
Earth is a busy primary so you wouldn't be short of thing to do..
IMO Earth/FF gives the most damage mitigation of all Controller combos.
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
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Much of that "aggro magnet" problem can be eliminated, even in the lowest levels, using the right strategy and the combo of Stone Cages and Radiation Infection. Let the tank or scrapper go in first to draw the aggro, then throw down Qucksand, Rad Inf and Stone Cages. (Quicksand before Cages for the -Defense.) Keep the Cages up and let your teammates clean up.
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Originally Posted by Psiphon
If you don't mind buffing I'd go with /FF.
Personaly I find my Earth/Rad to be an aggro magnet having so much AoE. Going FF would give you some personal mitigation, reduce the aggro and still allow you to be very effective. Earth is a busy primary so you wouldn't be short of thing to do.. IMO Earth/FF gives the most damage mitigation of all Controller combos. |
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:
My comments are partly based on the old SK system when I've joined teams and not had an SK available. Using an Earth/Rad against +4/5 Council can be a painful experience; I spent half the time hiding behind boxes.|
Originally Posted by Local_Man
Much of that "aggro magnet" problem can be eliminated, even in the lowest levels, using the right strategy and the combo of Stone Cages and Radiation Infection. Let the tank or scrapper go in first to draw the aggro, then throw down Qucksand, Rad Inf and Stone Cages. (Quicksand before Cages for the -Defense.) Keep the Cages up and let your teammates clean up.
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Fighting Red Caps can also be an issue where there is no cover and damage coming in from 360 degrees.
Earth/Rad is nice but I stand by my comment for team and personal survival an Earth/FF or even a an Earth/Cold would be preferable to an Earth/Rad -obviously IMO
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
Earth/Rad is hands down the best all around "team" based control combination. With the team combo the OP was talking about, DPS really shouldn't matter. Hold the stuff for the oncoming aoe onslaught of the scrapper and fire tank, provide safety through debuffs and efficiency through buffs and watch the enemies die. DPS.......not so important unless you're soloing.
@Mental Maden @Maden Mental
"....you are now tackle free for life."-ShoNuff
Earth / cold brings together the strong area controls of earth and the strong single target debuffs of /cold to make a very solid team controller.
For soloing, animate stone will be even tougher with /cold shields and, if taken, frostwork; when you add in the -res from sleet and the stealth from arctic fog that allows you to easily drag stony into aggro range, you've got a very easy solo ride as soon as you hit 33 and slot animate stone up for damage and accuracy.
All earth controllers solo relatively slowly until level 33; even if you take pool powers such as air superiority there's no way around that.
Thanks for all the ideas. A lot of you made me really question what to go with and after thinking about it and talking with my friends about what they are making, I went with an Earth/Rad. A fire/fire tank is joining me as is a ?/dark scrapper. Another friend might be joining with a claws/sr scrapper they made a while back too. Was hoping one of them would want to make a FF def, but I couldn't convince any of them
I saw Local_Man's guide and will go by that quite a bit. I'm thinking of not slotting much (if at all) for damage and to just make sure acc, -defense debuff, and recharge time are slotted for a lot of my powers.
Also, thoughts on taking Stealth to hide a bit from baddies? I'm going to get Hasten (maybe SS) and taking recall friend and TP.
Team support, that's what I'm about.
Thanks for all the ideas. A lot of you made me really question what to go with and after thinking about it and talking with my friends about what they are making, I went with an Earth/Rad. A fire/fire tank is joining me as is a ?/dark scrapper. Another friend might be joining with a claws/sr scrapper they made a while back too. Was hoping one of them would want to make a FF def, but I couldn't convince any of them
I saw Local_Man's guide and will go by that quite a bit. I'm thinking of not slotting much (if at all) for damage and to just make sure acc, -defense debuff, and recharge time are slotted for a lot of my powers.
Also, thoughts on taking Stealth to hide a bit from baddies? I'm going to get Hasten (maybe SS) and taking recall friend and TP.
Team support, that's what I'm about.
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I like being able to stealth missions, especially on some of those Shard TF's. You're likely to have a very tight build though so you may want to go the Superspeed + Stealth IO route. That gives you enough stealth to bypass most mobs without burning a power selection.
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Originally Posted by mrbothsides
Also, thoughts on taking Stealth to hide a bit from baddies? I'm going to get Hasten (maybe SS) and taking recall friend and TP.
Team support, that's what I'm about. |
Don't worry about def debuff slotting in your control powers. Acc/Rech/Mez in that order (end reduction after acc in cages). (earthquake it's fine) but your other powers need to hit, comeback quickly and last long enough to be effective.
@Mental Maden @Maden Mental
"....you are now tackle free for life."-ShoNuff
Quote:
I want to echo Mental Maden's suggestion . . . Slot for Accuracy, Recharge and Mez in that order. Don't worry about slotting for Defense Debuff . . . just cast Quicksand under every other AoE control you have, and that 25% Defense Debuff stacked with the Defense Debuff for everything else will be plenty.|
Originally Posted by mrbothsides
Thanks for all the ideas. A lot of you made me really question what to go with and after thinking about it and talking with my friends about what they are making, I went with an Earth/Rad. A fire/fire tank is joining me as is a ?/dark scrapper. Another friend might be joining with a claws/sr scrapper they made a while back too. Was hoping one of them would want to make a FF def, but I couldn't convince any of them
I saw Local_Man's guide and will go by that quite a bit. I'm thinking of not slotting much (if at all) for damage and to just make sure acc, -defense debuff, and recharge time are slotted for a lot of my powers. Also, thoughts on taking Stealth to hide a bit from baddies? I'm going to get Hasten (maybe SS) and taking recall friend and TP. Team support, that's what I'm about. |
As for Stealth . . . Stealth is always nice to have on a controller, and I like to get a Stealth IO if I can but hate to use a power choice on Stealth. Your main contribution will be staying at range, throwing out AoE controls. If you want to take Hasten/Super Speed and add a stealth IO to it for invisibility, that's fine. However, for the most part, your control powers will add more to the team than stealth. Of course, if nobody else has it, then invisibility/Recall Friend is nice to have for stealthing missions. You might be able to avoid taking Recall Friend by making sure you take pick up the Team TP temp power from the Bank mission in the low 20's.
I hope the Earth/Rad guide is useful. As far as I know, the information on the powers and strategies is still current -- I updated the information of Rocky when he was changed. Every now and then, I go back to add some stuff about IO sets which I didn't know much about when I first wrote the guide. I need to finish that some day . . .
I pulled out my Earth/Rad solo the other day, and he is still a lot of fun. Then I got to play my level 33 Earth/Storm some on a level 48 team that was struggling with +3 foes before I got there. We adjusted the strategy to use pulling foes onto Quicksand at a corner, then I unloaded my other controls and debuffs once they were bunched. The mission became much, much easier thanks to the awesomeness of Earth Control.
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
try earth/emp
Fluffy Bunny 1 Person SG
Rabid Bunny 1 Person VG
Both on Pinnacle
Hobbit's Hole 1 Person SG
Spider's Web 1 Person VG
Both on Freedom
Earth is a great control primary for teams, but I always feel like using it solo is a waste of the huge area controls at Earth's disposal combined with its lovely defense debuffs.
My Earth/Thermal is a great support toon, and a very capable solo troller, though it doesn't blow through missions like a Fire/Kin. An earth pet with Forge and both resistance buffs is a wonderful way to deal damage and grab aggro away from my squishy controller while it lays down holds, mezzes, debuffs, and heals for Rocky, along with the occasional Fire Blast or Fireball from the Fire Mastery Epic Pool.
My Earth/Storm is just plain fun. It's like a swiss army knife of control with some great damage thrown in, as well. I found it to be a whole lot like my Plants/TA controller in that there are SO MANY nice AoE powers at your disposal that it's very hard to use them all before at least one recharges. Also, it's a controller with highly visible powers, which I like very much.
Too many alts to list.
I'm going to go at this from a different angle than the others.
I play character conception characters. I might pick sets, but I pick powers and theme them to the character.
When the new Earth Domination set became available for controllers. I tested out an Earth/Earth controller.
My concept?
Cheeseman - a creature made of living cheese. This character was originally a Champions the RPG character that I had created as a joke, but, with the new Power Customization options, I figured I could pull him off. Earth/Earth seemed to fit. Cheeseman originally was to have powers to Entangle people with an attack that started off gooey and then hardened as it "cooled" or set-up.
I started making the powers look like cheese and figured out what to call Cheeseman's various attacks. Quicksand would be his Nacho Dip attack - layering the ground with cheesy goodness that would slow down any foes that tried to run through it.
It is in my experience that any group of players with any power sets that work together can be effective in the game.
I understand that some people want to mini-max and feel that they must do certain things in order to be "the best they can be".
This is a game about superheroes. I like to have fun when I'm playing. To me it isn't all about who's better at what or mini-maxed the best, but what's fun for me to play.
I didn't make Cheeseman (Earth/Earth Controller) on the live servers (nor did I make Cheesewoman (Earth/Earth Dominator) on the live servers). I have a lot of characters and, at the time, all of my slots were filled.
As you are thinking of making a Earth Controller, I would start of by thinking of a cool character conception and then figuring out what secondary fits best - or, conversely, pick a secondary that you have not tried before and then work up a character conception to fit the power sets.
Remember that just because the set is called Earth, that doesn't have to be what it is in the end. It will have those same powers, but you can customize how they look and explain why you are doing what you are doing that could very well have nothing to do with the original sets aspects. Check out the options you have for customizations. There are some cool picks for customization for Earth that might give you character conception ideas.
Quote:
Uh, Earth Domination for Controllers?? I think you mean Dominators. The basic point about making characters for concept is fine, but we can't make Earth/Earth controllers. The closest we can get is Earth/*/Earth.
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Originally Posted by The_Alt_oholic
I'm going to go at this from a different angle than the others.
I play character conception characters. I might pick sets, but I pick powers and theme them to the character. When the new Earth Domination set became available for controllers. I tested out an Earth/Earth controller. My concept? Cheeseman - a creature made of living cheese. This character was originally a Champions the RPG character that I had created as a joke, but, with the new Power Customization options, I figured I could pull him off. Earth/Earth seemed to fit. Cheeseman originally was to have powers to Entangle people with an attack that started off gooey and then hardened as it "cooled" or set-up. I started making the powers look like cheese and figured out what to call Cheeseman's various attacks. Quicksand would be his Nacho Dip attack - layering the ground with cheesy goodness that would slow down any foes that tried to run through it. It is in my experience that any group of players with any power sets that work together can be effective in the game. I understand that some people want to mini-max and feel that they must do certain things in order to be "the best they can be". This is a game about superheroes. I like to have fun when I'm playing. To me it isn't all about who's better at what or mini-maxed the best, but what's fun for me to play. I didn't make Cheeseman (Earth/Earth Controller) on the live servers (nor did I make Cheesewoman (Earth/Earth Dominator) on the live servers). I have a lot of characters and, at the time, all of my slots were filled. As you are thinking of making a Earth Controller, I would start of by thinking of a cool character conception and then figuring out what secondary fits best - or, conversely, pick a secondary that you have not tried before and then work up a character conception to fit the power sets. Remember that just because the set is called Earth, that doesn't have to be what it is in the end. It will have those same powers, but you can customize how they look and explain why you are doing what you are doing that could very well have nothing to do with the original sets aspects. Check out the options you have for customizations. There are some cool picks for customization for Earth that might give you character conception ideas. |
Nuclear Mom Level 50 Emp/Rad Defender
The Mighty SPAMM of Super People Against Malevolent Monsters (SPAMM) Super Group. Join us and enjoy the comfy chairs and shrubbery in Spammalot (Guardian Server)
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Some folks work the other way. Find a powerset that is fun and effective and develop a theme. I assume that's the OP's method of operating as he mentions the mechanical functions of the sets rather than any conceptual trouble he's encountering.
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Originally Posted by The_Alt_oholic
I'm going to go at this from a different angle than the others.
I play character conception characters. I might pick sets, but I pick powers and theme them to the character. |
My Main is an Earth/Empathy and i never needed any other Toons
I go for the Buffs in Empathy only and Hell i am an one Man Killing Mashine.
If its getting tough i simply use the AE Reggen Buff ( Lvl 38 Empathy) an i am safe.
With Earth Epic i got the Damage i need to go Scrapperlock with him *hrhr*
Okay he is realy an latebloomer but...... *Muahaha*
Greetings Braddack
So I've made it to level 22 with my new Earth/Rad named MR. Zong. I'm loving it a lot and am probably going to enjoy it a lot more now that I've enhanced it up a bit (Pretty much ran to 15 with no enhancements and have been adding them bit by bit)
When there is a kinetics around SB'in me, I feel pretty solid as far as holding. I don't have any IO sets YET, probably going to wait unil 35ish for those. Until then SO's and standard IO's.
Other than the link I posted earlier taking you to the build i was going to try and follow, any specific IO sets that is a MUST HAVE in any of my powers?
Thanks!
First of all, let me start off by listing some of the support characters I've already played
lvl 50 Fire/Kin Troller
lvl 50 Ill/Kin Troller
lvl 43 Rad/Sonic Def
lvl 50 plant/therm Troller
So, I've been wanting to make make an Earth/? for a while, but that's the thing... not sure what the ? should be. I like the thought of the extra defense debuff with /rad... But I've done rad. TA sounds interesting since it seems to be the best combo for pure control (though I could be wrong about that). Storm also seems kinda cool... and I hear it's great, but still not so sure.
I will be teaming with a couple friends who are making new toons as well. Most likely a MA or Elec/SD scrapper.. Then a Fire tank.
Suggestions? Thoughts?