Some Advice on my Plant/Storm Build please

@Hercules

What are you specifically trying to get out of IOs? Does your toon have any problem areas that you are trying to mitigate?

Hmm. Don't have a lot of time at the moment, but my .02 Inf:

- Get Tornado. If you're thinking of dropping Air Superiority anyways, that's a good spot for it. Lose the slots in Snow Storm and slide them over to the 'nado- it does very nice things for your damage, and makes a decidedly handy panic button.

- I'd suggest swapping the Touch of Lady Greys for Analyze Weakness in Freezing Rain, mostly because I prefer the bonuses, but also because FR does take an accuracy check. The Achilles' Heel proc is quite nice in Freezing Rain as well- an extra 20% -res is nothing to sneeze at, and it can be comfortably subbed in for the Analyze Weakness proc.

- The purple Immobilize set in Carrion Creepers is a phenomenal waste. Creepers do a crapton of damage; I've got Ragnarok planned for 'em, with the Impeded Swiftness proc taking place of the Chance for Knockdown, since that's quite spectacularly useless in Creepers

- If you could squeeze another three slots from someplace and put one each into your APP stuff, adding one more from each of the sets you've got slotted in them, you could get another 17.5% global recharge. Certainly wouldn't hurt, I'm thinking. Maybe the sixth slots from Entangle, Strangler, and Roots? >.>

- Slotting Roots for damage is actually a viable option; I've got a Posi's Blast set in mine, complete with proc, heh... I actually put the purple sets in Entangle and Strangler.

- If you're taking Superspeed for stacking with Steamy Mist for full invis, you can save yourself a power pick and just use a Celerity +Stealth, or Unbounded Leap +Stealth. Maybe sub in the Spirit Tree or O2 Boost?

Anyways, not sure how much all this will help or not, but there you have it.

Quick comments:

• Tornado gets better mileage when groups are packed in tight (as does Lightning Storm). If you are an active "Herd"icane-er this might work for you. I also use it for an Achilles Proc.
• At low levels Roots provides decent AoE damage; at higher levels its quickly overshadowed by other AoE. I personally didn't slot for damage but would most likely have selected Posi if I wasn't maxed out on the recharge bonus.
• In your pursuit of damage I would recommend moving slots around to powers that take +recharge sets. As mentioned above you have a few sets that are sitting with four slots but can offer some global recharge with extra slotting and different set selection.
• Procs in Freezing Rain and Carrion Creepers will give you a damage boost. I think Mezzosoprano recently reported that procs accounted for 40% of his builds damage output.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hercules Now, if I can just figure out how to do all this without burning 2 or 3 respecs.... and saving the enhances for resell.

You can always copy to test before burning a respec on live.

Here is my current build that I am still tweaking since I transitioned from Stone Mastery into Ice Mastery. It may give you some ideas on alternate power selection and slotting.

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Good Luck with your build Herc!

Well- this is my final build (have everything, but need nine bubbles to fifty as I type this). Obviously, I'm going for the 'kill everything before it gets me' option.

Click this DataLink to open the build!

Proccing Carrion Creepers is a somewhat cheaper, and still quite good, way to go for setting them up for damage (they'll take Impeded Swiftness, Trap of the Hunter, and Explosive Strike, if memory serves- the Positron's Blast and Kinetic Combat ones can be slotted, but don't proc off the vine-flails, as I understand it, reducing their usefulness somewhat).

Also, if you put the Stealth IO in Sprint, you can just leave Sprint turned on and keep Stealth active- it basically becomes slow superspeed at that point.

I'd be very leery of targeted AoE procs in Creepers- they don't seem to work properly, except on the first firing of the power.

One interesting use I saw of Lightning Storm procs (and one I would use myself if I had the spare slot, but sadly don't, as I'm going purple-crazy... and have already bought the bloody things >.<) was putting a Devastation: Chance to Hold proc in there. I may actually still do that, debating on whether or not I want the extra control or the extra damage and that bit of Psychic defense. But given that the Lightning Storm strikes are actually AoE, it works surprisingly well- saw a lot of Tesla Cages during those fights.

Great scoop Gavin! Here is the updated post by Weatherby Goode:

http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showp...34&postcount=7

... good bloody hell.

Thanks for the catch, Gavin, that power is infuriatingly difficult to figure out how to slot.

Yeah, I remember when we caught that. Seems like it hasn't been fixed yet.

I have a Plant/Storm at 50. No IO sets, though some Procs. Played and slotted correctly, it should be heavy on control and a very violent damage set (as in, people will notice).

I know the "conventional wisdom" of PUGs is to ignore Tornado, but a Plant/* Controller can ignore that advice with impunity. Entangle, Roots, and Carrion Creepers all apply a -Knockback Debuff that will prevent unwanted KBs. Similarly, the Giant Fly Trap also does Entangle (and seems to prefer the power), adding another source of -KB. This means you should slot Tornado up with as much damage as possible and feel free to unleash it, even if the Tank yells at you. Keep it under control, and you can prove to a PUG that Tornado is a meat-grinder, not a mob-scatterer.

Any Controller who skips the AOE Hold in favor of Tough/Weave is a fool. Period. Sorry, but it's true. The AOE Holds are worth considerably more than the paltry amount of +Resistance and +Defense given by the Power Pool Powers, and they don't cost you three power slots and an extra power pool choice. You're a Controller. Rely on your control powers for defense. You won't need either +Resistance or +Defense if you're doing your job correctly.

Similarly, a */Storm Controller ignores Thunder Clap at her or his own peril. It's another AOE control power, on top of the ones given in your primary. It's got a relatively quick recharge time and a decent duration. Sure, it's minions-only, but sometimes, that's what you need.

Also, to address the complaint that the AOE Holds rarely hit--it pays to understand how the Accuracy Modifiers in the game work. Most AOE controls have an Accuracy Modifier of 0.8 (compared to your average power's 1.0). They're going to miss most of the time, and you're going to need to slot them for Accuracy more than you'd like. I always slot mine with three ACC (or the equivalent) because if I'm reaching for a 0.8 Accuracy Modifier AOE Control, I want it to hit everything it can.

I took it fairly late in my build. There are other priorities that should take precedence over Thunder Clap. However, it's still good to have on a team for greater AOE control when Vines is down and things aren't so dangerous that you would want to use Seeds of Confusion.

It always works for me, and I've been doing it on teams for a very, very long time.

Roots has an Accuracy Modifier of 0.9, so if you haven't slotted it appropriately for Accuracy, it's generally going to miss (67.5% chance to hit even-level foes unslotted).

The -Knockback is 100%, provided the power hits, and it lasts 12 seconds against an even-level foe.

Gotta say, Herc, I'm in agreement with Salty and CB here- Tornado is an integral part of my attack chain on my Plant/Stormie, and I've also used it on the Cimeroran Wall, with the usual good results.

... if you're interested, my usual attack chain is Carrion Creepers-Seeds of Confusion-Roots-Freezing Rain-Tornado-Lightning Storm-Roots/Whatever's Needed. It makes an impressive mess :3

One possibility as to your troubles on the Cim Wall- it may be that some of the Romans got off their Shout of Command buffs, neutralizing your Roots.

That shouldn't neutralize the -KB, though. In fact, it should bolster it.

Hmm... according to Paragonwiki, there's no -KB component to Shout of Command. And I'm not sure... really, reeeeeally not sure... but I think that if your Roots/Entangle aren't sticking, the -KB isn't applied either.

Uhm... and understand, this is me relying on my admittedly fuzzy and imprecise memory... I'm fairly certain that my loathing of Warwolves on my Plant/Stormie is precisely because the -KB doesn't take effect when I try to Root them, and they get flung in all directions. I suppose I could go test this, but at the moment I should have been in bed an hour and a half ago. If anybody else feels like testing it, feel free :/