What goes well with Earth (theme-wise)

Hi, I like to try and match my primaries with my secondaries theme-wise because I'm weird like that.

What would match well with Earth Control? I was thinking Rad, but I'm not sure. What do you all think?

what theme are you going with earth?

you can do dirt, lava, coral, glass, ice, and probably others if you select the different looks for it and tint it appropriately.

then if you tint the second set you can get a lot of variety
darkness can be turned blue to look like water for instance

lava/thermal
ice/cold
coral/water (dark)

Earth/trick arrow offers a great natural theme with a wide selection of powers to lock down mobs.

Earth/cold (with ice blue crystal customized earth powers!) give you some great options visually as well as great debuffs.

Earth/storm for the elemental master theme.

Earth/sonic gets style points just because I don't see many around.

Try several builds and have fun!

I created an earth/dark which is awesome at debuffing everything. I made it a cave dweller who draws power from the nether world.

Ice Ember

An Earth/TA is excellent.

Earth/Dark sounds nasty as well, Tar Patch and Quicksand, very nice.

And yeah, Earth/Rad is amazing.

Before color customization, I made an Earth/Rad Controller who is a plant. Not a Plant Controller, mind you. She IS a plant, a tree actually, using green-tinted "plant pheromones" and "forest energy" (Rad) and heaving the earth itself with her roots (Earth control).

Earth and Rad certainly go together easily (and if you roll one up, take a look at my Earth/Rad Guide, linked in my sig!). Radioactive ores from the Earth is easy to imagine. Earth/Rad is one of the very best team support and control characters in the game, with great AoE control and debuffs. You can easily be the only controller on a full 8-man team.

Earth/Storm is a great combo. Mine took the Fire APP, to go with an "Earth, Wind and Fire" theme. Her name is "Ella M. Ental." (For you "Chuck" fans out there, it could just as easily be "Earth, Wind, Fire and Rain.") One nice part of this combo is the added damage to a low damage control set. My Earth/Storm is one of my favorite controllers.

Clearly Earth/Therm matches theme-wise in the tropics or volcanic, and the additional Resistance makes Rocky very hard to beat. If you want to be more of a Healer, I would go with Earth/Therm rather than Earth/Emp, which really has no theme basis.

Earth/Cold can just as easily be based upon an Antarctic or Mountaintop theme. Cold has great buffs (defense and endurance) and debuffs, but lacks a self-heal. It is a very strong secondary.

There is an older guide that recommends Earth/Sonic as part of a Seismic/Earthquake theme. And that was before you could take Seismic Smash as an APP power. I like the theme, but I've never liked Sonic.

I know Earth/TA is a great combo, but theme-wise, I find it a bit tough. Maybe an American Indian theme, but that doesn't really fit with Trick Arrows. Earth/TA may have more control than any other combo, but it is hard to theme. (My Illusion/TA has a theme of a stage magician who uses Bow and Arrow in his act. That works pretty well, I think.)

Local,

I think Earth/Empathy is thematic. There are lots of associations one can make between life forces and the earth. Stonehenge, ley lines, channeling the life essence of the earth to heal those who depend on it, etc. tribal shamans, Chinese healers or earth dragons, druids, elemental spirits, etc .... all kinds of themes exist here.

Lewis

You can always color the /Dark powers sandy-colored, and make them match the earth control powers. Make a desert-dwelling character who can control sand.

The problem with that, Aett, is that dark control itself is already the ultimate sand-looking set. Shadow field colored beige looks pretty stunning. Not that earth/dark would be bad for a desert-themed character but it wouldn't be my first pick.

I have to agree that earth/storm is pretty much the coolest earth combination. To post in the vein of that other recent thread, this pairing is what I think of when I think "controller." I suppose this is less true than it once was, but one of the things about it is that everything you do has an immediate and obvious graphical impact compared to most other controller combos. Stalagmites in particular is deeply satisfying to me. Compare that to flashfire or heart of darkness and they don't look so great.

Earth/Rad is a great pairing as a team support build. Any pairing works; theme is limited only by your imagination.

A few posters mentioned a Gorgon (e.g. Medusa) theme using Earth/Poison in combination. I'm not a big fan of /Poison in its current state but I think it would make a decent pairing.

I have heard rumors on one of the live global chat channels discussing a new secondary in the works. If its of the same caliber of the two Dark sets Controllers received, it may be worth the wait and a good thematic pairing. Food for thought.

or go the bavarian way: mountain living guy with a really loud vioce which would be earth/sonic/earth

I'm suprised noone has mentioned Earth/Thermal yet.
Tint the flames to be red/orange instead of green and you got a perfect Lava/Heat type of theme.

Local Man did mention it, but no harm mentioning it again. Its a good set.

Lewis

Earthquake knock down, freezing rain knockdown, endless fun. Stone cages, hurricane - nothing can tough you.