Might try Earth/Sonic

[Doc Ranger]

So these are two sets I haven't tried yet (but wanted to) and I thought I'd put them together and give it a go. Having never played either can you guys give me some set slotting advice? Or any build suggestions?

 

Thanks!

[MTeague]

I've got an Earth/Poison.  Not everything will carry over, but Earth can be take quite a number of Procs... and if you might be soloing at all, it's... probably a good idea to put several procs in your AE Immob.   Should be able to get 4 dmg procs no problem if you wanted.   (Earth tends to be light on damage.... the -Res debuff will help offset that, but my Earth/Poison has some -Res debuff as well, and it was still painfully killing things at low levels before I sugar-daddied them with several procs.)

[Doomguide2005]

I've run several Earth/'x' to 50.  Damage isn't its greatest asset.  Killing stuff solo is generally quite safe but also quite slow, especially pre-pet. It's biggest assest is probably just how much it can control at once.  From what I've read, but have minimal experience with,  procs should help.  Probably a lot given what Earth can take in its powers.   

[Without_Pause]

Earth has to be Top 3 for me. It is a beast in terms of control. As long as you are fine waiting for damage to kick in or don't consider it a higher priority, then it is terrific. Maybe even the best primary. Part of me wishes I had pimped out my Earth/storm on Live just to fully see how deep that rabbit hole was.

 

I had a Sonic defender which I liked. I never got it to 50 though.

[Doc Ranger]

Damage is never my priority. I like total control 😉

[Doomguide2005]

Well while most of my builds could readily handle 3 I think Earth can handle up to 4.  Stalagmites+Stone Cages(+/- Quicksand) potentially well proc'd.  Volcanic Gasses, Earthquake and Salt Crystal's.  Mine usually don't have Salt Crystals, but it's a perfectly good aoe sleep that does debuff.  So if it's control you want you'll have no shortage of powers to exert it 

Edited February 20, 2020 by Doomguide2005
Punctuation

[Washuchan]

Back in the day I had a earth/sonic/earth troller and loved her to death.  I got requested alot to bring her in on alot of missions because of my cc shields and -res power. On teams I always tried to keep her in close to the action to support the tank and scrappers. I had most of my defs soft capped and on res s/l were capped e/d/f/c were about 45-50% finally t/p were about 20% res. With today io's and new stuff you will have a cc beast who has good shields and -res power from sonic and eq from earth you will just melt mobs on your team. 

 

If you plan to solo yes your game will be very very slow and after you get rocky/poo man that will help speed things up some what and putting the -res power on him and hopefully he will stay in melee range to make things go some faster.

[Coyote]

1: because Earth is so strong defensively, and Sonic adds more defensive buffs, I think you want to slot up for damage. Max out the damage procs on Fossilize and Stone Prison for damage. Note that you can get by with less Accuracy slotting since both Quicksand (if you take it, I skip it) and Earthquake do -Def.

2: speaking of Earthquake, it takes -ToHit, and that's what I'd enhance... 4x Dark Watcher's Quiet Desperation. It also takes FF +Recharge, which should fire every time you drop it, so I'd put that in. And I don't recall if it takes Achilles, but if it does, I'd stick that in. The procs are actually more important than the -ToHit enhancing, so if you're short on slots you can get by with 1-2 Recharge IOs in place of DW's.

3: I don't slot Animate Stone for damage primarily. All 4 pet resist/defense uniques go in, and then Accuracy and Damage. This way, with the Sonic shields added, he's capped to all damage and can tank most AVs if supported by Aid Other. I think adding the ability to tank AVs for a team is more important than 30% additional damage slotting and Accuracy isn't much of an issue given all the -Def that Earth puts out.

4: Volcanic Gasses is another place to max out procs. With all of the defensive ability, I go for damage: 3 damage procs, 1 Annihilation -Res, and the last two slots for Accuracy/Hold/Recharge

5: I find using the Force of Will set absolutely imperative. Less so for me since I run Earth/Cold so I have Infrigidate to put Achilles, but a Sonic doesn't have that, so you want Weaken Resolve both as an attack with 3 damage IOs and as a way to reliably put Achilles debuff on an AV. However, that's actually the lesser reason... the main reason you want it is so that you can spam Wall of Force with a Force Feedback proc. It actually does decent damage for a Controller AoE (about 120-130 with 5x Positron (no Recharge) and the FF proc), but the main effect of spamming it is to punch up Recharge of your powers so that you have Stalagmites & Earthquake up for hte next spawn more easily, and can put out Volcanic Gasses more often.

[oedipus_tex]

Not to be the downer here, but Sonic is a disappointing set IMO. It's got some interesting things going on but the whole thing falls apart because it can't really compete in the IO game. 

 

If Sonic Siphon could slot a -Resist proc, or maybe even be an outright attack power you could slot as a blast, and Liquefy wasn't complete trash I would like the set better.

 

BTW developers, if you are listening... Liquefy is trash. Garbage. Rubbish. It has the longest Recharge of almost any power in the game but functions close to Time's throwaway slow patch power. Plus it lasts 15 seconds less than that power. You'd think with that kind of Recharge and a name like "Liquefy" that it would do something cool, but it doesn't. A Blaster's nuke recharges 2.5 times more often than Liquefy does. In its current state its as bad as the the debuff powers Tankers and Brutes get in their tertiary APPs, except its the T9 power in an actual buff/debuff set. /rant

 

Instead of Sonic I'd encourage you to go with Thermal, which does most of the same stuff but better. You'll lack the big Resist bubble but can make up for it with a self heal. You can slot -Resist procs in Melt Armor and, other than the time it takes to cast it, beat the AoE -Resist of Sonic handily.

 

You can kinda make Sonic work (kinda) if you don't mind being in the lowest tier of buff/debuffers and concept is vital to you. But as it stands now I find it hard to recommend.

 

Edited February 20, 2020 by oedipus_tex

[Doc Ranger]

Yeah I'm not doing the sets for their OP amazingness. I'm doing it because I haven't yet played them. I had a Thermal defender already so I've done that one 😉

[Doomguide2005]

While Oedipus_tex slams with some merit on Liquefy, Liquefy should take a ton of procs (if I'm not  mistaken you'd have more choices than slots even if 6-slotted).  You could end up with a very potent albeit long downtime nuke whose damage is further boosted by all the -resist the set can muster.

[WindDemon21]

On 2/20/2020 at 12:49 PM, oedipus_tex said:

Not to be the downer here, but Sonic is a disappointing set IMO. It's got some interesting things going on but the whole thing falls apart because it can't really compete in the IO game. 

 

If Sonic Siphon could slot a -Resist proc, or maybe even be an outright attack power you could slot as a blast, and Liquefy wasn't complete trash I would like the set better.

 

BTW developers, if you are listening... Liquefy is trash. Garbage. Rubbish. It has the longest Recharge of almost any power in the game but functions close to Time's throwaway slow patch power. Plus it lasts 15 seconds less than that power. You'd think with that kind of Recharge and a name like "Liquefy" that it would do something cool, but it doesn't. A Blaster's nuke recharges 2.5 times more often than Liquefy does. In its current state its as bad as the the debuff powers Tankers and Brutes get in their tertiary APPs, except its the T9 power in an actual buff/debuff set. /rant

 

Instead of Sonic I'd encourage you to go with Thermal, which does most of the same stuff but better. You'll lack the big Resist bubble but can make up for it with a self heal. You can slot -Resist procs in Melt Armor and, other than the time it takes to cast it, beat the AoE -Resist of Sonic handily.

 

You can kinda make Sonic work (kinda) if you don't mind being in the lowest tier of buff/debuffers and concept is vital to you. But as it stands now I find it hard to recommend.

 

Yeah Sonic definitely need some help, but there isn't much you can really change without changing the whole set itself. What they need to do, first and foremost is make Liquefy on a two minute base recharge. So on high recharge builds you can just about perma it. Most other sets have really good powers that they can have up all the time, like chrono shift, farsight etc on top of heals. Especially for a tier 9 power, this should definitely be the case. It also goes against sonic, which can mainly easily avoid hasten, except for that power only, which NEEDS it to have it up any decent time evne with full slotting and bonuses.

 

They also need to make Sonic Cage a single target hold, not intangible, it would make sense given it's use though to keep it at a mag 4 to get bosses right away. Sonic Dispersion should also have sleep protection since the set offers no defense to at least try to avoid those, And they should add -defense to sonic siphon so we can slot IO sets into it, and make it a small aoe at least as well.

 

That said, the earth/sonic combo is actually a pretty good pairing, The only other pair i'd really do as a troller is plant/sonic for spirit tree and resists and to make the pet tougher. This combo, mainly to make stoney much tankier, and he's good to put sonic disruption on, and sonic repulsion when you put a kb-kd in it as well. Earth's -defense also meshes well with sonic's -resist.

[oedipus_tex]

What I would to do to Sonic Resonance is:

• Change Sonic Siphon animation to a 1 second animation
• Change recharge schedule on Liquefy from 300 recharge 30 duration (crazy) to 120 recharge 45 duration
• Remove extra endurance cost per enemy repelled from Sonic Repulsion

 

With those changes, particularly the Sonic Repulsion change, I think it would be a more attractive set.

 

[r0y]

I have played a LOT of Earth control over the years.  Earth is (IMO) the best control set in the game.  The lock-down is amazing, and the debuffs are incredible.  The price you will pay for this epic control set is DAMAGE.  Even pooman (the pet) is slow/under-performing (better than Jack, but not by much).

 

With all that, consider only playing in large teams and/or leagues.  You'll shine with earth.  Sonic, as anyone who's ever played it, including the posters above, will tell you:  it's not a worthy set.  If you want to try it out, do so on test server or something... +resist buffs are better with thermal, as the rest of that set is great.

 

My favorite Earth Control pairing has to be /Dark.  My Earth/Dark is a monster in teams, but that's because /Dark is amazing, too.  I've also done Earth/Storm, which is a more advanced play style – albeit, much easier thanks to the addition of KB/KD procs.  Also, Earth/Poison is also hard, but really strong against everything, including (especially) AV's and such.  Earth/Rad, /Time, and /Nature are all very good, too.  Earth/Rad is particularly gruesome (an easier version of Earth/Poison with more team buffs).  These get hard to slot and set, because when you have a lot of powers worth taking, and they want a lot of slots, sacrifices have to be made.

 

Power sacrifices were essentially eliminated due to P2W travel powers (ninja run, steam just, etc), but slots are still too few for some builds...

 

Just a word of about Hover/Fly with Earth:  Stalagmites (the AoE stun) requires you to be on the ground to use.  It's a GREAT stun, I usually 5-slot purple stun set (Absolute Amazement), but Stupefy is good, as well.  Get a lot of recharge and use it often after stone cages and/or quicksand for a nice AoE ghetto hold.

[warlockiii]

On 2/20/2020 at 9:04 AM, Coyote said:

5: I find using the Force of Will set absolutely imperative. Less so for me since I run Earth/Cold so I have Infrigidate to put Achilles, but a Sonic doesn't have that, so you want Weaken Resolve both as an attack with 3 damage IOs and as a way to reliably put Achilles debuff on an AV. However, that's actually the lesser reason... the main reason you want it is so that you can spam Wall of Force with a Force Feedback proc. It actually does decent damage for a Controller AoE (about 120-130 with 5x Positron (no Recharge) and the FF proc), but the main effect of spamming it is to punch up Recharge of your powers so that you have Stalagmites & Earthquake up for hte next spawn more easily, and can put out Volcanic Gasses more often.

 

Hi, @Coyote-- Curious if, in your experience, Wall of Force was effective (enough) in adding more FF procs (in conjunction with the one in Earthquake or Bonfire if Fire). Another topic (in Defender) seems to suggest otherwise. Thanks.

 

[Coyote]

2 hours ago, warlockiii said:

 

Hi, @Coyote-- Curious if, in your experience, Wall of Force was effective (enough) in adding more FF procs (in conjunction with the one in Earthquake or Bonfire if Fire). Another topic (in Defender) seems to suggest otherwise. Thanks.

 

 

Which topic is this? It sounds like interesting reading.

 

For this character, Wall of Force is absolutely great, for several reasons:

1) a lot of long-recharge powers (something usable once a fight but not twice due to Recharge)

2) even the other main AoE, Frost Breath, can use more Recharge since it's slotted with damage procs and so it shouldn't have slotted Recharge... but with a 32 second base, getting more Recharge is good

3) No other actions to take after a point: Controls are fired off, Sleet is out, and not enough AoEs to cycle them. Tightening up the attacks with a +Recharge bonus helps a lot.

 

Now, without reading the other post, I'll say that WoF isn't that high a percentage per attack since it has a large Area Factor... but if you're fighting 10+ guys, it's pretty reliable in activating, and also it has a fast base Recharge so you're firing it several times a fight. With 3 uses of it, you expect at least 2 activations, and that's better over a minute than 2 LotGs. But you can get 4+ activations within a minute, and that over 30% average Recharge boost. Well worth spamming, at least so far for me. Heck, the only reason to not care much about it is if you already have such high Recharge that you don't really have much use for more, but... Earth/Cold will never stop wanting more Recharge. Not quite as bad as Illusion/Cold, but /Cold is still a Recharge-hungry set.

[Nyghtmaire]

@Doc Ranger I’m pleased as punch to see this (albeit from February) pairing. I’ve just recently returned to the game, and my earth/sonic/leviathan is my favorite controller. Not Def softcapped; merely focused on recharge. @Coyote and @oedipus_tex both speak truth though (as to the value of procs and the limitations of /sonic, respectively). 
 

Once I got the pet, it was relaxing to begin upping the difficulty solo, and teaming is a zen-like experience. I hope you tried it out. Here is the thread where the forumites here provided some much-appreciated advice: