Plant Manipulation vs Tactical Arrow for Survivability

[Achilles6]

This is a lvl 1 thru lvl 50 question...so no Incarnate abilities. I have a lvl 43 Arch/TA concept character. So far she's been pretty tough. Eagle Eye is just such a good power. I do play at range whenever possible. I have been considering another concept character with Archery and Plant Manipulation. I like the look of Spore Cloud and Wild Fortress...at least on paper. I have no experience with it on a Blaster. I have several higher lvl characters with Nature's Affinity, so these 2 powers are at least familiar (tho the Blaster version is a bit different). For survivability purposes, how is Wild Fortress in comparison to Eagle Eye? Which is better to have...regen or absorption...with the default numbers each are given? Those with experience, what are your thoughts on Spore Cloud? Good? Bad? Meh?

[Elia87]

I have beam/ta and beam/plant..i love both tbh... spore clouds is pretty good, I can solo adamastor faster on /plant thank to double -regen effects from spore and disintegrate effect..although I feel like hits are a little weaker on /plant. Wild fortress is meh. I prefer /ta 

[ZorkNemesis]

I have an Archery/Plant, I love her though she's a bit rough around the edges, to the point where I think my Archery/Energy outperforms her.  Even so she's a lot of fun.  Now, I can't speak for Tactical Arrow and Eagle Eye, but based on my other Blaster experiences...

 

Absorb beats Regen.  I find that when I have the absorb barrier I tend to survive longer.  Maybe it's because of how it ticks up, I don't know, but on the many Blasters I've rolled the ones with Absorbs tend to live longer.  Wild Fortress has other benefits though, because it's a damage resistance power (to Toxic) in addition to the Absorb/Recovery, it takes the Resist uniques for added survival without having to go into Fighting if you don't want.

 

Spore Cloud is rather meh.  It's not bad, great for making a tough enemy like an EB, AV, or GM a little less threatening.  The issues with it is that it's much less potent than the variant in Nature Affinity, it gives you away preventing long snipe if you want to use that (while also drawing aggro if you're opening with it), but most importantly things tend to die too quickly for it to be useful.  What good is an anchor debuff when you usually drop the crowd in one attack?  Still worth having if you want to fight AVs and GMs for sure though, or if you want to go all +4 it helps since bosses there usually do survive.

 

One thing I will touch upon in regards to Arch/Plant: Toxins.  The power is good, you get extra Toxic damage on all your attacks in place of a traditional Build Up, but this has a couple of caveats.  Because it's a damage proc, you can't increase the Toxic damage with additional damage bonuses.  Stacking it with Aim will not improve the bonus Toxic damage, but will still increase To Hit and the Lethal damage of your arrows.  More importantly Toxins is borderline worthless when paired with Rain of Arrows.  Due to the way pseudopets and procs interract Toxins will add virtually no damage to RoA which can be a big letdown.  You'll still see the damage on your other attacks though and it can help to get around the Lethal resistances that are so common so still very worth it.

 

Also worth checking out is Vines.  Vines is a very strong control power to have access to giving you a giant crowd hold/immobilize, perfect for preventing foes from fleeing the incoming RoA.  Put a lockdown +2 mag hold in it to prevent anything most from fleeing, though the hold values seem rather inconsistent at times.

[Achilles6]

Thank you for your insights, Zork. I appreciate it. Thinking I'm just gonna shelve this idea.

[carnalchaos]

Both are fun!  Trick Arrow tends to encourage you to play more at range and I think that gives it a nice boost to its survivability.  I really enjoy trick arrow but cant seem to find a combo that I just have to play and I think its because it pushes you into one style of play.

 

Plants is really fun and versatile but I agree that spore cloud toggle is very disappointing.  It does look amazing making giant mobs grow mushrooms but the debuff is sub par. 

 

Gun to head, I pick Beam/Plant.