Plant or Fire

Ladies and Gentlemen,
Having read a few controller stories here, it caused my altitis to flare up, I have an urge to build either a plant/storm or a fire/storm. I am curious as to how the various sets play together. ie fire/storm is a damage dealing monster but drinks end. like an M1 tank (5 gallons to the mile). Also I am curious does most damage dealing powers in storm (ie does containment double damage for powers like freezing rain, tornado etc.)

I appreciate any info and tips. I have started up a fire/storm (redside) and am fixing to start up a plant/storm (blue side)

I prefer Plant as a Dominator set, for 100% chance for boss confusion and a good aoe immob, and Fire for Trollers for containment hotfeet+fire cages for AoE and good a good ST chain using Ring of Fire, Char, and and an epic attack (fire blast, seismic smash, etc)

Well I have a plant/storm at about 8 just solo playing, the fire seems to destroy things faster but again it burns through the endurance. The plant seems to be safer (even though I haven't gotten SoC yet) I think it is because fire makes you a little more agressive with hot feet so more melee damage comes at ya.

Plant/Storm is an awesome controller. I much prefer it over Fire/Storm, which is one of the most endurance hungry controllers there is.

• Positioning is very important to Plant Controllers, as the Seeds Cone is your main control. Storm is the best secondary for positioning.
• Plant is strong at AoE Damage but weak at single target damage, and Storm adds good damage from Tornado and Lightning Storm to fill that hole.
• Once a Plant Controller has thrown Seeds, his control options are limited. Storm's Hurricane does a great job at controlling adds. Storm's Freezing Rain makes a knockdown zone. Thunderclap provides Stun for minions. And Tornado can be a source of chaos, and even Gale and Lightning Storm's knockback, plus the slow and -Recharge of Snow Storm can give you a few extra seconds.
• Roots has -Knockback, which makes Tornado into a great damage power.
• Storm lacks a self-heal, but Spirit Tree can make up for that to some degree.

One of my fav toons is a fire/storm troller, tricked out to help with the endurance problems. She's a wreaking ball, who can agg a whole room without even trying and still defeat all comers. Doing DA missions right now, and she is just rolling thru most of the missions even set on +2/8 unlike my poor elec/rad troller who is doing the same missions solo as well.

So really only advise I can give to you is learn to control your endurance use to be all you can be. Once you got that fixed or under control, you can go and rock the town and have crazy fun in almost any mission. In fact, my fire/storm is my default toon when people are looking for damage dealers for a TF... and that's saying something when I also have a ss/fa brute and a fire/fire blaster.

It is also worth mentioning that Ageless will cover any endurance issues you may have once you get that far.

I would personally go for Fire/Storm and once everything is stunned from Flashfire locking them in place with Fire Cages and battering them with Bonfire and Tornado causes a LOT of damage.

It takes some work to play though because you have to make sure everything is immobilised within Bonfire and keep re-applying Fire Cages so they don't go flying. It is almost counter to what Storm does for a living but works very well. Using this playstyle will also get you lots of love from teams.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aggelakis PrincessDarkstar: "RAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRGHHHHHHHHHH SOMEONE IS *WRONG* ON THE INTERNET!"

I have both a Plant/ and a Fire/ Incarnate.

/Storm generates enough KB for one to be wary about using their primary to control scatter. Fire compounds that if you're spamming Bonfire for damage.


Seeds and Creepers can give you an edge in damage at less cost (and risk) to you than using Hot Feet and spamming Bonfire.

Fly Trap has better slotting options.

For mitigation/recovery, I prefer Spirit Tree to Smoke.

Plant also gets the range advantage with its Hold (TAoE vs. Fire's PBAoE)

If you don't mind the risk, Flashfire works well with Thunderclap and Tornado for stun.

Fire's the bigger END hog and requires the more aggressive playstyle.

I usually go Fire Mastery for the Rez and Shield.

Fire's in you face style could benefit from Barrier and Void and almost requires Cardiac.

Plant allows more flexibility in iSlot selections.

Cognitive Interface for either.

Storm Lore pets lets you double up on Hurricane debuffs.

Fire's biggest issue is mobs that are spread apart. This can be potentially devastating to a Fire Controller. I eat lucks and try to herd them to a spot before I use flashfire and cinders BUT! This doesn't always work and you will eventually run out of purples. Also you have to CONSTANTLY keep reapplying cages and GOD FORBID that you miss or forget to use cages...Bonfire, Tornado, LS will send them flying so make sure that you don't miss a beat. Fire/Storm is very active...reminds me of a /kin.

Here's my mob combo.

Smoke, Flashfire, Cages, FR, Ice Storm, Cages, Bonfire, Cages, LS, Cinder, Cages, Tornado, FR, Thunderclap. Sometimes I click on hurricane for a second for a quick debuff. (I also have Hot Feet and Ageless running.)

I wished that I would of taken the Plant route because Fly Trap also throws out Roots and with SOC the mobs tend to bunch together which makes things easier. Also Carrion Creepers keeps things busy and it's great for dealing with Alphas.

Plant may not be as deadly as Fire at times but it's safer...so much safer especially for a guy like me who LOVES wind powers..so much that I have waterspout and tornado >_>.

I agree about mobs being spread out. Also thanks Oed for the Snow Storm trick...I haven't played my stormie in so long that I forgot about that tride and true Snow Storm pull. It works with almost anything except for those annoying Warwolves grrr.

Most of what's germane to /Storm has already been mentioned, so I'll just add a few things I find useful:

1.) Since you're required to take Gale on the Controller side, it's worth knowing that you can use the power without sending the entire mob flying. Since Gale is a cone attack with a maximum range, you can step out of range, queue Gale, and then walk back into range - resulting in just the one mob (if you do it right) getting pushed back into the AoE deathball. Yes, you can usually achieve the exact same effect with Hurricane, but Gale lets you move that guy *right now*, and do it from range.

2.) Freezing Rain, since it's placed, can be fired around corners or over low walls, entirely avoiding the threat of an alpha strike. Useful for pulls which you're not sure are survivable.

3.) You can get a similar effect with Snow Storm if you take a running jump from behind cover, with Snow Storm queued (best when you're at the start of a hallway, or can jump from one side of a wall to the other). You'll start the animation in mid-air and the skill will take effect (and aggro the mob) as you land safely behind the other wall. This works very well as an extension to something mentioned earlier, where you can place Snow Storm on a forward mob so that the mob clumps better while running toward you.

Edit: 4.)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tater Todd I agree about mobs being spread out. Also thanks Oed for the Snow Storm trick...I haven't played my stormie in so long that I forgot about that tride and true Snow Storm pull. It works with almost anything except for those annoying Warwolves grrr.

What he's getting at, in case you don't already know, is that Warwolves are bad Snow Storm anchors. They have this habit of barreling down a hallway with Snow Storm on, and aggroing half the mission to you. Just watch them carefully if you don't have a better SS target.

Another note on Gale:

I slot it with a Force Feedback proc and both Plant and Fire's AoE Immob anti-KB effect allows me to spam it to death.

If you take an damage based Interface; you'll get a nice secondary bonus from spamming it.



Creepers love Interface