choice

Hi all.due to funds/time I need to choose between my ice/rad and earth/rad.opinions please?

I'm a big fan of my Earth controller and Earth dominator, but my trip into Ice just left me cold. (pun intended, of course!)

Really though, Earth is great.

What will your playstyle be: solo, duo, team? Static team, PUGs ?, etc. If it is a static team what's the typical makeup. What are your goals and desires? Etc. etc. etc. More information would be helpful for good advice.

I would be on teams/tfs mostly and a bit solo.

For me the main advantage that got earth over ice is the inherent def debuff.

Else the 2 power set have enough tool to be the only troller on a team.

I would like to point over the argumentation of local_man, that while ice got less hard control than earth, he is less dependent of recharge than earth.

And his 2 main form of control (ice slick / AA) will be nearly as effective on boss than on minion/lt.

Now if couple ice with rad/cold/storm you just fill the hole of the set : having debuff.

So really choose the set depending of the play still, like local_man explained.

Both are worth playing. Earth/Rad is probably easier. Ice/Rad is probably the most unlike anything you'll play in this game or any other.

Mechanically, Ice Control is expert mode. The pet is just ok, the controls are imperfect, and the whole operation is just overall somewhat dangerous. However, Ice Control does have the advantage that it sails past team encounters with lots of bosses or elite bosses who have mezz protection, because most of them don't have knockdown or slow protection/resistance. These encounters are rare, but you'll know you've hit them when the Plant and Fire Controllers suddenly eat a face full of return fire from a group that's immune to their powers. This is more likely to happen in difficult AE missions than the general game, FYI.

Earth/Rad is very good, and very direct. It's sort of 101 on all of the different things Controllers in general can do. And it is very good at those things. The only real downside is the lack of a Confuse power.

Despite concerns about relative power, my semi-IOed Ice/Rad was able to beat the level 50 Elite Bosses in the Incarnate arc solo. He can also solo Carnies on +0x8 as long as bosses are turned off. He has Indom Will down to about a 10 second gap, which means Arctic Air and Choking Cloud are always up. Glacier is mechanically identical to other AoE holds but has much more effective graphics that actually communicate that enemies are restrained. The only real issue is the endurance. But alpha slots have helped a lot with that.

My Vote would be for ICE/RAD. As Tex mentioned, there are things about Ice that can ignore the "type" of enemies you are facing. Plus I just LOVE Confusion as a means of soloing tough encounters. My highest level controllers have been Mind, Illusion, Ice and now Plant. Yeah, Confusion is that good at helping you solo.

Another reason I would Go Ice/Rad is that the secondary effect of Earth control duplicates one of Rad's best debuffs (defense debuff). More is always better, but I just think Ice's -recharge secondary works well with Rad's other debuffs. Both sets offer good positional control, which helps with your debuff toggles, so no clear cut winner there.

Finally, I just like the sound of running Artic Air simultaneously with Chocking cloud (maybe colored a light misty blue) as a moving "hands-free" controller. The endurance issues would be enormous, but basically anything near you would be contained or confused. What's not to like.