The key Plant powers are Roots, Seeds, Strangler, Creepers and Venus Fly Trap. Everything else is optional, but Vines is strongly recommended. Roots is a key power for several reasons: (a) it is one of the main sources of damage, since it does twice the damage of other AoE Immobs. (b) By Immobilizing the foes, you keep them together so that the Rad debuffs get applied. Also, you somewhat reduce their attacks on each other, allowing you to get more of the XP. (c) While Seeds is recharging, Roots + Radiation Infection is nearly a hold because foes can't move and can't hit you very easily thanks to the ToHit Debuff.
With Rad, you have everything except Fallout, Mutation, and maybe EM Pulse as key powers, although EM Pulse is so good, it should be taken.
Plant/Rad has a few weaknesses. One is a lack of single target damage. If you miss foes with Seeds, you might have problems. Dealing with multiple bosses is a problem, unless you stack your holds (Vines and EM Pulse).
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
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Obviously I concur with everything our esteemed resident expert has to say. One caveat to my comments is that I'm specifically talking about teaming. Assuming someone to absorb the alpha, maybe a couple of damage-dealers... this is not necessarily the build I would want to solo with or go AV-hunting with, but rather an incredibly effective controller set to team with, one that is effective from day one and out of the box without even a nod to IO sets needed to make it 'workable'.|
Originally Posted by Local_Man
The key Plant powers are Roots, Seeds, Strangler, Creepers and Venus Fly Trap. Everything else is optional, but Vines is strongly recommended. Roots is a key power for several reasons: (a) it is one of the main sources of damage, since it does twice the damage of other AoE Immobs. (b) By Immobilizing the foes, you keep them together so that the Rad debuffs get applied. Also, you somewhat reduce their attacks on each other, allowing you to get more of the XP. (c) While Seeds is recharging, Roots + Radiation Infection is nearly a hold because foes can't move and can't hit you very easily thanks to the ToHit Debuff.
With Rad, you have everything except Fallout, Mutation, and maybe EM Pulse as key powers, although EM Pulse is so good, it should be taken. Plant/Rad has a few weaknesses. One is a lack of single target damage. If you miss foes with Seeds, you might have problems. Dealing with multiple bosses is a problem, unless you stack your holds (Vines and EM Pulse). |
Ah - and for the record, this particular build is going with Earth EPP, more for theme than anything, so eventually single-target damage won't be an issue.
Not trying to start some kind of trash-talking thread or anything... I just dusted off one of my favorite controllers and played with a handful of PUG's over the weekend. They usually numbered between 5-8 players and none were particularly good or particularly bad... but it really didn't seem to matter either way.
Every mob got IR, Seeds, LR and EF... and then I started browsing for Bosses or troublesome Lt's (Tsoo Sorcerers, Shamans, etc.) to hold. AM + Hasten popped whenever they came up and every now and again Carrion Crawlers dropped for fun. Maybe offer up a completely unnecessary Radiant Aura if it looked like people were taking damage - you know, so that people knew I was doing my job as a 'defender'.
It really felt like I could have been teaming with anyone - if they knew how to mash buttons we were going to be successful. I levelled this character from 26-29, so its not like I was rocking IO sets or anything, but wow. This is just a hell of a power set combo and a tremendous amount of fun to play.