Convince me on a new Secondary for my Plant troller...

As much as I tried to like it, I'm just not sold on my Plant/Thermal Controller. I've pushed through till he's lvl 45... and I'm still not feeling it. Don't get me wrong, I like Plant as a primary, I just can't get into Thermal as the secondary.

For a bit of a background I've taken the following Controllers to lvl 50: Grav/Storm(my main controller), Ill/FF, Fire/Kin, and Earth/Rad, and have a smattering of others floating around at various levels. So I have some familiarity with a few of the secondaries.

Right now, I'm considering going either /Storm or /Rad, with Storm currently having the edge. Dark Affinity looks interesting, but having a Bots/Dark MM and a Dark/Elec Defender at 50, I'm not sure I'm interested in trying a fairly similar set again.

So I ask, what do you like paired with Plant, and why?

i would actually recommend dark affinity, fade and soul absorbtion are just awesome and i wish i had those powers on my other dark toons

I really like Plant / Storm. Using super speed + steamy mist for invisibility to pull previously popped creepers into the next spawn.

Dropping Freezing Rain on immobilized mobs being chewed up while they're bashing each other, simply makes me giddy.

I'm not there yet, but I imagine that dropping Tornado, and Freezing Rain with -resist procs in each onto a hard target like an AV will be a thing of beauty. Add lightning storm to the mix, and some single target damage from the immoblize, an EPP blast, and the hold will work really well.

The way I look at it is, AoE damage, check.
Single target damage, check.
Ability to debuff, spot heal, check.
Synergy with defense armor in EPP and Steamy Mist to work with defense bonuses? Check.
Endurance will be a problem, going Ice EPP for hibernate, and proper Alpha slotting will make it quite manageable to go full out.

If it fits your style Plant/TA/Fire. I find it quite enjoyable and it's a high speed damage controller. Open with Flash to limit mob perception. Drop Spirit Tree (does not cause aggro), Then Seeds. Hit a target near the middle with Acid Arrow and follow up with Disruption Arrow.

By now the spawn has self herded and you can lock them into melee range with each other with Roots. With a High rech build you can alternate Oil Slick Arrow and Creepers every other spawn for maximum carnage. Season to taste with Fireball and Fireblast.

One caveat is to skip all the powers that debuff the mob's potential to damage themselves, so skip Glue Arrow and Poison Gas Arrow and put a single end reducer in Flash Arrow.

Much faster and safer soloing than a blaster and you can solo easily as soon as you have Seeds perma.

Edit - Bosses are easily handled by stacking Ice Arrow with Strangler and/or Entangling Arrow with Roots. Spirit Tree fixes any damage that you are likely to take.

At this point, I have Plant/Rad (Pot Holder), Plant/Kin (Flora the Explorer) and Plant/Storm (Zephyr Lilly) controllers. I would say that solo, the Plant/Storm is great. There is a great synergy with Storm's ability to position foes and the Plant powers. The added damage from the secondary really helps.

However, on larger teams, the Plant/Kin really shines. It is very, very busy/clicky with all the buffing, but it really helps teams wipe out crowds in almost no time. The Earth APP adds more AoE (Fissure) and single target (Seismic Smash) damage attacks. The cone nature of Seeds works pretty well since I use Super Speed with a Stealth IO, which lets me get in great position for Seeds, and then run in for all the great buffage. I have plans to soft-cap to S/L Defense (with Rock Armor), but I haven't gotten there yet.

The Plant/Rad is certainly a good character, as Rad is flexible enough to fit any primary well. Maybe it didn't thrill me because I already had an Ill/Rad, Earth/Rad, 2 Fire/Rads all at 50.

Plant/Dark/Stone is the rise of the regen controller. With enough rech, you can push your regen into ~1000% - 1300% range (SP and Soul Abs.). Earth's Embrace gives you capped HP and Twilight Grasp being a very high amount of heal added to you. Then you work on adding to your Defenses with Fade and Rock Armor. Fluffy adding -tohit and healz and you are a monster... Oh yeah, the regen buffs are team wide too.

Did that sound convincing?


Oh, I forgot. recovery is very nice too. looking at somewhere close to 4.5/s with 1 target and perma Soul Abs. and some IO's (of course).

I've really been enjoying my new plant/poison. I never really saw many poisons before, but I really like it. The debuffs are very strong, and having a second single target hold means instantly holding any boss. Together with seeds, it's a very safe set to play, even though poison technically doesn't provide much on the defensive side (besides pretty significant -tohit and some -dmg). Another big plus for me was getting the great debuffs very early on, and them not requiring many slots to be great.

I've had a lot of fun with a Plant/TA/Mu - it's a lot of fun but you must have either fire or electric to ignite your Oil Slick.

Thermal is a bit underrated IMO, but it can take a bit of extra thought; but Melt Armour & Heat Exhaustion is rather lovely, as is Forge for your pet. If you can get MA's recharge down I found it makes a big difference. Themal is far better for teaming than it is solo of course, because it has a number of buffs which might keep pets alive but are rather wasted solo.

Plant Storm does sound tasty tough. My Mind/Storm is one of my most potent characters.

Have you considered Plant/Poison? I'm enjoying a Dark/Poison and on paper at least I see some nice synergy there.

"You got to dig it to dig it, you dig?"
Thelonious Monk

I have Plant/Storm at 50. Its a very good set. I like it tons. I have a Plant/TA/Fire that is nice too. Level 44 or so. I play it in the same style as Miladys Knight does. I had both Plant/Emp and Plant/Rad in the mid 30s at one point but found them a bit boring.

Anyway, I think Plant/TA may be my favorite in the long term. Well, so far. I would like to try Plant/Poison some day.

Lewis

Plant/storm is very effective but it's a bit too fire and forget for my tastes. That is, once you've got your defense, recharge and procs sorted out all you really need to do is run up to a large mass of things, start dropping pets on them and soon they'll all be dead. Or, for a single strong thing, do that but use the single target immob instead of the aoe. It's not that it doesn't take any thought at all, but every fight tends to play out in a pretty similar way in my experience.

I have my Plant/Dark/Fire at 50 now and he is amazing. I also played Plant/Storm that was quite fun, but with no self heal solo it could get interesting. I like to play at +2/+8 or higher and dark does that much better imo. I do miss Tornado though that was a great power solo after locking them down.

Thanks for everyone's input so far.

I tried Poison on an MM, and I'm quite sure I'm not ready to try it again just yet.

I keep looking at Trick Arrow, but I'm finding myself hesitant to go that route. I may change my mind and try it on this toon. It's a set I haven't played with much, and I should give it a thorough try at some point.

Hey Rangle, if you want to see a Plant/TA/Fire in action I can team with you on Justice and give you a Demo.

@Grandpa Squeak

I recently rolled a Plant/Dark, that has been pretty awesome so far. Dark Affinity really plays a bit different than Dark Miasma with the power alterations. Give it a shot.

Ok... so I was incorrect about only having the on MM using Poison. I'd forgotten that I also have a Psy/Poison Corruptor floating around as well. (to many Alts, so little mind...er time.) I played around with it a bit last night and remembered how well I liked the combination, even though the toon is still fairly low level.

That being said, I think I'm going to try Plant/TA. It's not that the other combinations aren't also tempting. Who knows, if I don't like this combination I'll just try another. It's not like I'm afraid to move or delete a higher level toon and start over.

Thanks to everyone for their input. It's always fun to get other perspectives on combinations, etc.

I'm currently running a Plant/Time (Slow Growth), a Plant/Rad (Vibrant Vineyard), and a Plant/Storm (Floral Tempest). All three have awesome solo and team potential. The Plant/Rad is my fave though.

Or you could make a plant dom and be a 1000 times cooler. Being able to 100% chance 1 shot confuse bosses is worth it.

I've got a Plant/Storm as one of my mains, and, while I can't entirely argue the 'fire and forget' thing, I happen to be rather fond of my killbox. He's also ungodly powerful- I mean, absolutely ridiculously so. I have to run on x8 to even notice the mobs, and there are times when I've pulled three or four x8 spawns down on myself solo without even realizing it until after I've wiped everything out.

And, while there is a certain 'confuse, root, pets' feel to things... you actually have a surprisingly deep toolkit. With confuses, knockback, slows, pets, along with a pair of stronger-than-you'd-think debuffs (and the usual hold and immobilize in ST and AoE variants)... and a weak stun and useless sleep... you can throw down a startling amount of control while doing enough damage to have what a PUG teammate described as 'a disturbing killspeed for a controller'

My main is a Plant/Emp who I levelled up during City of Dual Pistols but nowadays Time trumps Emp big time for a Controller, it has all the nice buffs Emp does but mostly as AOEs (so they affect you too).

Any of Time, Dark, Storm, TA and Rad are all going to be excellent. Pick whichever you like the sound of (of the 5 I'd rank Rad last personally, only because I dislike the anchor debuffs on large teams, it'd still be an excellent combo)

Edit : I see you went TA. Creepers & Oil Slick with a Fireball lobbed in sounds like a ridiculous I Win combo.