I think either would be OK, here. I've got an Earth/Thorns that hit 48 last night, and I like it a lot. The main issue with Earth is that outside of domination, it's hard to make it completely safe to go into melee. Fiery Assault has a great ranged chain, though, so you can drop an Earthquake, optionally Stalagmites a bunch of mobs, and pick them off with blasts. Combustion's not my favorite PBAOE, but it'll get the job done, and Fire Breath's a decent cone.
As for Fire/Earth, you're looking at a much more melee-based set. Fire Control benefits pretty well from Power Boost, which should be helpful, and if you want to limit how many enemies try to surround you, Hot Feet may be handy. Fire Control does benefit from having its AOE hold be affected by Domination (Volcanic Gases is not, but is awesome in other ways), so that's a point in its favor. Fire Imps do good damage, but die a lot more easily than the stone pet (which is tough enough to tank AVs for a limited period of time).
Honestly I'd make the call based on whether you prefer more melee or ranged, and go with /Earth or /Fire, respectively, depending on that.
I really like Fire/Earth, but fair warning: Fire/Earth is an absolute endurance hog with no way to replenish it. Be ready to constantly bum blues from everyone else in the group and frequently use rest, even with the free refill from Domi. I'm guessing once I get perma, this problem will be alleviated, but it's hell in the leveling stages. I don't think I ever had this issue with either Psi or Thorns.
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I am planning on getting power sink with mine. The planned out build will have perma dom and I believe that amount of recharge on power sink will help a lot.
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Originally Posted by tarrantm
I really like Fire/Earth, but fair warning: Fire/Earth is an absolute endurance hog with no way to replenish it. Be ready to constantly bum blues from everyone else in the group and frequently use rest, even with the free refill from Domi. I'm guessing once I get perma, this problem will be alleviated, but it's hell in the leveling stages. I don't think I ever had this issue with either Psi or Thorns.
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Hmm, being an end hog is problematic, but do you find you have enough control to lock down mobs? And how's the AoE damage? I know that Earth is considered the best ST damage of the Dom secondaries, but I'm curious how Fissure and Tremor do, damage wise.
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Originally Posted by tarrantm
I really like Fire/Earth, but fair warning: Fire/Earth is an absolute endurance hog with no way to replenish it. Be ready to constantly bum blues from everyone else in the group and frequently use rest, even with the free refill from Domi. I'm guessing once I get perma, this problem will be alleviated, but it's hell in the leveling stages. I don't think I ever had this issue with either Psi or Thorns.
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Earth/Fire is a monster, and easy on the Blue Bar as well, even with skipping Consume. On teams you can easily lock down multiple spawns / areas. You can also cast Earthquake, Gases and Quicksand from cover which makes it great at dispersing alphas before they can even happen.
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Nope, it's trivial. With 3 Recharge SOs you've got Quake and Stalagmites back every 45 seconds, so if you're staggering them you're talking one of them back every 23 seconds or so. And QS is back veryt quickly with just 1 recharge SO in it anyway and available basically on demand. And then you have Gases still available as an additional control for whenever you think you need it (twisty corrider maps like Office where there's a good chance of two spawns aggroing is perfect as it will hold anyway who runs into it, and if you dump a QS as well they're not getting back out easily).|
Earth/Fire also has a strong amount of control, but it seems as though it all comes from the primary. Is it difficult to get the recharge low enough that I can use an AoE control (QS + Quake; QS + Stalag; QS + Volcanic) on every large mob in teams? |
Earth Assault has the best single target melee powers of any Assault Set, plus no cone powers (which is a big bonus for a meleer IMO), getting an AOE instead in Fissure. Sure it's not the Controller version but it's still nice and works well with Hotfeet. With a Fire/Earth you will need to learn careful use of Fire Cages though as it will nullify the sporadic knockdown of your Earth Assault powers (personally I'd skip it entirely and just allow for thing to be doing the stun-stagger around you, the ghetto hold combo of Flashfire -> Cages is nice but being then able to knock an annoyed non-stunned boss off his feet with a Mallet or Fault or Air Superiority, if you take it, is nicer).*
As people have said if you fancy a meleer go Fire/Earth. If you fancy a more ranged approach go Earth/Fire. Both have excellent synergy, more than a more thematic Earth/Earth or Fire/Fire combo IMO.
Hmm, I think I'll go with Earth/Fire, it seems like a very interesting combination. While I tend to prefer melee combat to ranged, I'd prefer to go Brute or Scrapper if I wanted to specialize in it.
I like the damage of fire, and I was hoping /Earth could provide a bit of control to supplement Flashfire, but Fissure and Tremor only have a 33% of triggering their respective controls on targets. While not bad, it's certainly not really good enough for what I'm hoping for from the set, I think.
Earth it is! I think it's official time for me to take my Earth/Storm 'troller off the shelf.
Thanks for the insight. It's not too hard to level up a character to 20-something and try it out myself, but I was interested in hearing what other people had experienced so I knew what I was getting into from the get go.
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Fire is adequate to lock down mobs once you haver enough recharge. It's not easy sailing like say Plant/ but it's definitely better than going Ice/.|
Originally Posted by Dinlek
Hmm, being an end hog is problematic, but do you find you have enough control to lock down mobs? And how's the AoE damage? I know that Earth is considered the best ST damage of the Dom secondaries, but I'm curious how Fissure and Tremor do, damage wise.
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Tremor is pretty horrible, not worth getting. Fissure is a severely nerfed version of the Controller power; 6 fewer targets hit and smaller AOE but still worth getting.
However, now that the NDA is lifted I can tell you that AOE damage from secondaries is NOT what you should be looking for with GR on the horizon. You should be going for a well rounded really effective single target secondary (Earth only gets the single target part, if you want well rounded, go /Fire or /Psi) because your Epic Pools have some truely phenomenal AOE in them (Ice and Fire).
I have an interesting concept for a character that I just can't put down, but I'm stuck between these two powerset combinations.
Fire/Earth seems like an attractive combo. The extra control from Earth secondary can make up for the fact that fire has arguably less control that Earth primary, and the fact that Earth Melee has so much knock-up makes skipping the end-heavy fire cages an even better idea, which is always a plus. I have a Fire/Psi at 50, but I never got into him, I think in no small part to the fact that the secondary doesn't have much...smash.
Earth/Fire seems just as nice, though. Knock-down from earthquake coupled with the slow from quicksand makes a nice combo, and if I get quicksand low enough recharge I can use it to turn Stalagmite's stun into a pseudo-hold, instead of using stone cages. I have an Earth/Storm hero-side, but the damage is just...piddly. Soloing is nearly impossible, but with /Fire, I don't that'll be a problem villainside.
What I'm kinda worried about, though, is survivability. Fire/Earth's use of knockdowns, stuns and aoe holds provides pretty strong (though long-cooldown) control, and without /Psi's DP I have a feeling I'll be hurting a great deal, especially against mez-resistance mobs (see: entire ITF).
Earth/Fire also has a strong amount of control, but it seems as though it all comes from the primary. Is it difficult to get the recharge low enough that I can use an AoE control (QS + Quake; QS + Stalag; QS + Volcanic) on every large mob in teams?