I'm going to give a big no to Fire Cages. Knockdown is a major part of both the stylistic appeal and the mitigation factor in Earth Assault, and Fire Cages is a high-cost, low-damage power that negates that fairly severely. About the only potential use I could see for it is for keeping enemies inside the radius of Hot Feet, but the slow on said power itself is generally enough to do that unless you're fighting Wolves or Arachnoids. Slow-resistant enemies aren't prevalent enough to devote spend on the power or on slotting the power, though, to my mind.
As for Seismic Smash, I frankenslotted it a bit and have been pleased with my results. I have four Crushing Impacts, a Focused Smite (I forget which ones exactly, I'll look 'em up and post 'em here when I can), and one from Lockdown and it works extremely nicely, keeping the hold portion just a little bit better than permanent without sacrificing any other aspect. If you have the money to burn and are going for a Perma-Dom, you could maybe go with the Basilisk's Gaze late in your career, but especially early on, I wouldn't recommend it.
EDIT/ADDITION: I checked my build, it uses the three triples + the Dam/End from Crushing Impact, the Acc/Dam/Rech from Focused Smite, and the End/Rech/Hold from Lockdown. Minus the Lockdown, I use this same slotting for all my melee attacks. If you're less concerned about End consumption, you can fit a little more recharge in there, but I never really find myself lacking in attacks and Seismic Smash, as mentioned, is still nice and permanent this way.
You want seismic smash slotted for damage. It is an amazing attack and you will be seriously nerfing the power if you put basilisk in there. I slotted Seismic with a full set of crushing impact. Put the basilisk sets in your 2 holds.
I personally skip the aoe imobil...too much agro and they cost alot of endurance.
I wouldn't put Basiliks in Seismic, earth is frankly carried by seismic smash. 5 crushing impact minus the dam/end and a lockdown end/rech/hold.
Proly skip firecages, as mentioned a big part of earth (and we can only guess it was part of the rationale behind the lower numbers the set produces) is the knockdown abilities the set carries.
That said, fissure and mudpots are so small it could be worth corner herding and then making sure they stay in the tiny area of effect with firecages.
What PPP would you all reccomend? I'm leaning towards Soul or Leviathan as either of those can fit the concept.
But maybe Mace's Def shield is the better way to go.
BrandX Future Staff Fighter
The BrandX Collection
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I went with Soul. You're going to be playing almost entirely in melee anyway, so might as well choose a set that rewards you for doing so. Soul Drain + Fissure/Tremor/Both = Happy time, oh yes.
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Originally Posted by BrandX
What PPP would you all reccomend? I'm leaning towards Soul or Leviathan as either of those can fit the concept.
But maybe Mace's Def shield is the better way to go. |
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Wouldn't Water Spout be a lot of PBAOE damage to add in there? NEver had it on any of my villains who've made it up to PPP level before to know.
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Originally Posted by Lazarillo
I went with Soul. You're going to be playing almost entirely in melee anyway, so might as well choose a set that rewards you for doing so. Soul Drain + Fissure/Tremor/Both = Happy time, oh yes.
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BrandX Future Staff Fighter
The BrandX Collection
Waterspout I'm assuming is a clone of Tornado (haven't actually used it on my dom, so not 100% sure). That being the case it is a very small aoe and you would DEFINITELY need firecages to prevent it knocking the mobs from Kansas to Oz.
If you are the type that jumps in after flashfire has nullified the whole group then soul is a great choice. If you sometimes jump in before everything is locked down then the defense shield is better imo.
While my Fire/Earth dom is still in his 30s, a big component of the Patron choice in my view is the endurance recovery power. Fire/Earth is incredibly end-hungry when you go all-out, especially if you run Hotfeet and/or Mud Pots. Power Sink from //Mu is the strongest end-recovery choice; //Widow has generally superior picks aside (SOUL DRAIN!), but their end-recovery move has triple the cooldown. I'm waiting to see how end-hungry I am once I get more IO slotting to decide which to take.
As for Seismic Smash - If you're using 4 Basilisks + 2 L50 Damage IOs, it could work fairly well. They'd bring it up to ~85% damage instead of ~95% damage, and accent the hold component more. I'm strongly considering this as a late-game swap, if I decide to try out solo/duoing AVs. Lower level than that though, and you start sacrificing too much of its phenomenal damage capability for the extra hold duration (and recharge) to justify the cost.
Rule number six of an empathy defender is NEVER underestimate a blaster's ability to die. I don't care if he has CM, Fort, both RAs, bubbles (both FF and Sonic), and is fighting next to a Storm defender with hurricane on. If there is a way to die in that situation, the blaster will find it.
First off like others have said. Do not take Fire cages. Earth has wonderful migration in KU.
Second slot Seismic smash with damage, or sets like Crushing impact.
End recov could be a problem, it all counts on the build you run. I skipped pots cause the radius is crap.
So if you can get some half decent recov I would go either Soul or Mu. Mainly for their TAoE. Also Soul has the nice to hit buff. Then Mu has the best pet in guardian.
Should I not be building for defense then, with a Fire/Earth?
I've been trying to figure out a perma-Dom build, while reaching decent S/L defense build.
Will perma-dom keep everything locked down enough that I won't need to worry about needing defense?
BrandX Future Staff Fighter
The BrandX Collection
I started a Fire/Earth dom about ten minutes ago and this thread is already helping. So, thanks. Going Mu for patron for concept.
Question to which I'm hoping the answer is yes: is this a 'flashy' combo late game? I'm hoping for epic and awe-inspiring.
They ALL float down here. When you're down here with us, you'll float too!
@Starflier
My build is not totally perma dom right now. I can easily hold off mobs pretty good. Tried doing 0 x8 run of nemesis, a little bit tricky but can be doable thanks to fault and flashfire. If you could get some def in the build go for it.
I went concept with fire/earth/mu, and it is still great.
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What do you think of as flashy? I find it a bit flashy.|
Originally Posted by Starflier
I started a Fire/Earth dom about ten minutes ago and this thread is already helping. So, thanks. Going Mu for patron for concept.
Question to which I'm hoping the answer is yes: is this a 'flashy' combo late game? I'm hoping for epic and awe-inspiring. |
If you start with Flashfire, or cinders. Then hit Ball Lightning/fissure, then finish off with tremor is looks cool, cause it looks like all the elements are pissed at them
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Earth control, kinetics, fire blast, etc are fairly flashy. The character is the earthly agent of Pele, goddess of destruction, volcanoes, and lightning, so Fire/Earth/Mu works, and flashy is good.
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Originally Posted by Mylia
What do you think of as flashy? I find it a bit flashy.
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They ALL float down here. When you're down here with us, you'll float too!
@Starflier
OMG, take the Fire Cages. Cages + Flashfire = Ghetto Hold.
I also vote for firecages. If the mobs are not locked down and wander off, those bad little imps will chase them down and get you double spawned. At least that was my experience leveling mostly doing solo mishes. I also like to have it for when I am on a team with an overly knockback happy teammate.
Still you negating you main forum of migration with KU. If you are worried about NPCs running off then you are having a little bit of problems. I solo'd my fire/earth dom to 50, and never had problems like that, since everything was always knocked on the ground.
You main migrations from earth go like this KU ->Stuns ->a hold.
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You don't actually need it that much though. Stun does fine generally. On the Controller side Flashfire+Cages (always do it that way around |
Originally Posted by Mr_Heat_Stroke
OMG, take the Fire Cages. Cages + Flashfire = Ghetto Hold.
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*) is fairly nice, at least the Cages get Containment Damage too. But it's always dependent on what other powers you're going to use to follow up the combo (on my Fire/Rad controller I use Flashfire > Fissure > Cages).* If you do get Cages use it sparingly and wisely. Don't go negating all that lovely soft control your Secondary can bring. Since Cages doesn't do Containment for Domis I really don't see it as being too important. If somethings being bold and running off I'd try and either hold it or knock it off its feet.
I'm not refuting that Earth Assault gives some mitigation with knockdown, but I'm enforcing the positive of having ADDITIONAL mitigation by taking Fire Cages and pairing it with Flashfire for a ghetto hold. You're never going to have everything knocked down and Cinders isn't up quite as fast as the other 2 powers. The ghetto hold fills in for the times you're waiting for Cinders to recharge.
Not everyone slots for permadom recharge, nor did the original post mention it. I was assuming they were building a standard IO/frankeslot build and not a billion dollar baby.
Mine is nowhere near a perma dom(a true one w/perma hasten). I got around 80% due to the slotting I did with a lot of frankenslotting into the late 40s.
Flashfire is up enough where you do not need to worry about it, and cinders is up roughly every two mobs. When you have the big trinity hitters nothing lasts too long, and then with fire imps, everything goes down quicker. Also with hot feet running stuff should not be running too far when you hit the flashfire
The real problem you face is end, cause it is an end hog.
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Again, Hot Feet is generally enough of a slow that if you want to keep stunned enemies from wandering off, you only need close to melee range with them (something that, using /Earth Assault, you'll be doing anyway). Between Char, Seismic Smash, copious amounts of knockdown, and three imps providing coverage, even Flashfire's necessity is somewhat lessened for this particular combo, especially because Cinders works so much better as a panic button.
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Originally Posted by Mr_Heat_Stroke
I'm not refuting that Earth Assault gives some mitigation with knockdown, but I'm enforcing the positive of having ADDITIONAL mitigation by taking Fire Cages and pairing it with Flashfire for a ghetto hold. You're never going to have everything knocked down and Cinders isn't up quite as fast as the other 2 powers. The ghetto hold fills in for the times you're waiting for Cinders to recharge.
Not everyone slots for permadom recharge, nor did the original post mention it. I was assuming they were building a standard IO/frankeslot build and not a billion dollar baby. |
Okay, started a Fire/Earth Dom. So far it's been lots of fun...but it's still the early levels.
Something I can't decide when trying to make a build in mids, I could use some help on.
Fire Cages. Should I take it? I hear lots of people saying skip it on a Fire/Earth (when reading other posts), but a few others say take it.
Seismic Smash, should I slot this with 4 Basilik's Gaze to get the set bonuses, and then 2 DMG IOs? Or slot it some other way?
BrandX Future Staff Fighter
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