It entirely depends on how much you like being in melee. Both sets have good melee attacks, but Earth is focused around being in melee, having three powerful melee attacks, but only two ranged attacks. Energy is more flexible and can do both range and melee fairly well, but Earth has by far the better AoE options (Energy's one AoE is so awful that some don't even acknowledge its existence).
If you can't decide based on mechanics, decide based on looks. By that I mean pick Energy. >.> I'm biased though.
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I am not sure its fair to say that Whirling hands is awful - its actually pretty middle of the road these days and does more damage than earth's pbae, tremor (doing 64 damage to tremor's 58). Keep in mind that ALL the PBAoE attacks in assault sets are now 15' radius and do very similar damage, with only minor differences, usually in activation time. |
Originally Posted by Vidszhite
It entirely depends on how much you like being in melee. Both sets have good melee attacks, but Earth is focused around being in melee, having three powerful melee attacks, but only two ranged attacks. Energy is more flexible and can do both range and melee fairly well, but Earth has by far the better AoE options (Energy's one AoE is so awful that some don't even acknowledge its existence).
If you can't decide based on mechanics, decide based on looks. By that I mean pick Energy. >.> I'm biased though. |
Tremor probably is the worst PBAE attack a dom gets - it has an insanely long animation (3.3 seconds - slower even than combustion and thorn burst) and is all smashing damage. Now, earth assault also has fissure, which is a decent targeted AoE attack which does about the same damage as whirling hands and animates slightly faster, but again it's all smashing damage and compared to the cones in most sets is really short range, since its a small targeted AoE with a short range.
Really, both sets have limited area attacks and I would not pick one over the other based on that, since the new APP attacks that dom's get provide SO much better AE options. I would base my choice on Vids initial advice - if you want to go with melee then go with earth, otherwise go with energy. Earth's ranged attacks are SOO bad that I would definitely avoid it unless you want a melee only toon, however the melee attacks are really good - the two hammers plus seismic smash provides a lot of single target melee damage.
Globals: @Midnight Mystique/@Magik13
Really? Man, things really have gotten better since I was gone. If Whirling Hands really did get a 15' radius, I might end up taking it.
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Yup - all the PBAoE attacks where set to 15' radius and damage was evened out. The outliers are things like psychic shockwave, which still has its insane 1.97s cast time; Tremor with it's insane 3.3s cast time :-); Combustion and thorn burst which do more damage than all the others but over half of it is in a DoT. Whirling hands and ice sword circle are actually pretty middle of the pack these days.
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Originally Posted by Vidszhite
Really? Man, things really have gotten better since I was gone. If Whirling Hands really did get a 15' radius, I might end up taking it.
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Globals: @Midnight Mystique/@Magik13
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And as you say it's a very tight pack. I mean Ice Sword Circle isn't far off Psi Shockwave really, damage is almost identical (and cold is less of a binary damage type than Psi) and ISC is slower to animate (but still not Tremor slow) but you have it from level 4 onwards!
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Originally Posted by EricHough
Yup - all the PBAoE attacks where set to 15' radius and damage was evened out. The outliers are things like psychic shockwave, which still has its insane 1.97s cast time; Tremor with it's insane 3.3s cast time :-); Combustion and thorn burst which do more damage than all the others but over half of it is in a DoT. Whirling hands and ice sword circle are actually pretty middle of the pack these days.
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Thank you all for the advice, I think I will Go with Mind/Ene, because it is more rounded, but I did also decide to try Ele/Earth. Thank you for the help
I propose Mind/Earth is a better fit simply because Mind's single target controls do so much damage. Add in lift, with hurl boulder and stone spears (hands down my favorite graphic in the game with the new color tints) and you have a viable ranged attack chain. Earth is actually quite a bit of fun too with the hammers and the high mag hold in its most damaging melee attack.
Energy looks sweet and the knockback can be useful, but I am not sure it is the best fit for mind. Just my 2 cents.
I am going to make another toon and I though I would ask for advice this time before I make a mistake. I have read a few things about Mind/Ene and I like the Idea, but was also intrested in Mind/Earth. They both look like good ST damage and both have power boost to help with control. So just looking for any input on either of the two. Thank you all for your help.