Earth/Empathy

[mrgambit]

I've had this poor fella sitting at 50 since pretty early in the server's life but have passed em up for other characters for a while now.  I don't really know too much about controller in this day & age so I would appreciate any nudge in the right direction. Definitely loving the stone guy but I'm not 100% sold on empathy these days.

[Doomguide2005]

End of my lunch break here, but I'll be back.  Earth and Empathy are 2 of my favorite sets.

[Doomguide2005]

    Took longer to get back here than anticipated.  First I'll say the obvious this pairing has team oriented written all over it.  It will also be very strong as support when exemping to sub 30 levels.  Second is a bit of a disclaimer I can't use Mids or post a build.  My computer up and died leaving my internet access entirely from this phone.  Upcoming changes (new notoriety settings) may and hopefully will breath new life into Controllers and support in general and Empathy in particular for endgame and Incarnate play.

     I'd focus on recharge first, last and foremost.  Nearly every single power should be contributing to increasing global recharge.  Your mitigation will come from, in no particular order or importance,  inspirations, teammates, your Auras, your controls/mez, and epic shield.

     I'd definitely take Fossilize, Stone Cages, Quicksand, Stalagmites, Earthquake, Volcanic Gases and Animate Stone from Earth Control.     

     And I'd take Healing Aura, Heal Other, Clear Mind, Fortitude, Recovery Aura, Regeneration Aura and Adrenaline Boost from Empathy.  The remaing 4 powers (Stone Prison, Salt Crystals, Absorb Pain and Resurrect) are, to my thinking, situational, unneeded or both.

     For pools I'd be leaning towards Leaping (for Combat Jumping), Speed (for Hasten - all about the recharge).  I also like Speed for Super Speed as several powers require you to be on the ground (Edit: looking through the CoD entries it appears only Stalagmites requires the caster be on/near the ground and only QS requires the target be on/near the ground) and gives you stealth and -threat in one.  Then Leadership for Assault and Tactics (as well as Vengeance and Maneuvers).   Epic is largely your choice.  I looked at Psi Mastery which has Indomitable Will.  IW is armor set quality mez protection power and a spot for another LotG def/increased rchg.  And with very high levels of recharge can be perma (or so stinkin close that a single outside buff will likely make it so) and this build should have those very high levels of recharge (need just over 200% global recharge assuming another ~100% in the power as I recall).  I tend to look at Spiritual Core for my Empaths.  Which is another advantage to IW is it frees up the pressure to take Clarion for mez protection allowing you to make other choices with less sacrifice.

 

Any questions or thoughts about Power choices etc.?

 

Edited October 27, 2021 by Doomguide2005
Format/clarity, correction

[Doomguide2005]

     A few more thoughts and some details about the build:

 

     All 14 primary and secondary choices were taken as soon as available.  Just happened to work out that way, something I find is not often the case when I put a build together.  It likely is more important in this build to do simply because it makes the build as exemplar friendly as possible in terms of power availability while exemped particularly at low levels.  

• Healing Aura - 6 slots for Preventative Medicine, and Fossilize - 6 slots probably 5 Unbreakable Constraint + damage proc in 6th.  But this also where not being able to try things around in Mids rears its ugly head.  It's much harder to see where AT sets and Winter sets might get used to benefit the build as I'm far less familiar with them.  Ultimately we are looking for global recharge bonuses
• Stone Cages - 6 slots.  Good spot for one of the special sets mentioned above that enhances Stone Cages damage and provides that desired global recharge at the same time.  I'm less concerned about enhancing the mez component than other aspects.  Normally I'd be more concerned about end use as this power sees lots of use but you've got RA on a very short cooldown from 23rd level and up as well as lots of global +recovery to help below 23rd.
• Heal Other - 5 slots for Panacea.  Just going to note here that I'm assuming the budget is essentially unlimited.  If not these would turn into Doctored Wounds as well as other options beside Purple sets above etc..
• Quicksand - just the base slot.  Largely doesn't matter what.  I like to use a Range enhancement as I've noted that often on indoor maps it can make the difference between dropping QS from around the corner (and therefore immune to return fire owing to having total cover to the spawns LoS) or having to step just around the corner to place the patch (and therefore risking return fire as now they can see and potentially target me).  Using my patches out of LoS is something Earth excels at doing.
• Combat Jumping - in my hypothetical paper build I used 2 slots here.  Kismet +6% and a LotG def/increased global.
• Hasten - 2 slots both 50+5 recharge IOs.  This is one of those powers where playing in Mids and/or the test server might result in shifting things around to place another slot for recharge to keep Hasten perma as long as possible while exemplaring increasingly lower.
• Stalagmites - This is your bread and butter alpha breaker or opener when you can't drop a patch from cover (do drop patches from out of LoS when possible).  Edit: 6 slotted, prefer 5 Absolute Amazement, then if not otherwise used the Superior Overpowering Presence proc.
• Assault - 1 slot, 50 +5 endred.
• Clear Mind - 1 slot.  Really doesn't matter what if anything is placed here.  Almost all sets including armor sets have need of this power even at high/endgame levels.  Below 16th some armor sets don't even have their mez protection and all of them have holes to certain attacks.  Knowing what some of those holes are (Confuse and Terrorize come to mind) makes for a better Empathy player.  A Confused end game Tanker or Terrorized Brute is a sad thing and you have the power to free them from the effect.  Blindness is another debilitating effect you can counter with CM.  

Life demands attention back later.

 

Edited October 27, 2021 by Doomguide2005
Afterthoughts, late edit

[Doomguide2005]

Continuing

• Earthquake - I put 6 slots in here on paper.  It is a Power where I would look to pull a slot if I discovered I needed or wanted one elsewhere.  Not because it's not an important power (it's anything but), but it can do the job with as few as 4.  You've loads of defense debuffs as well as to hit buffs so slotting for defdebuffs is not where I would go.  I'd likely use 4 Dark Watcher's Despair as a minimum (5% recharge bonus).  Then add a Force Feedback proc plus either move the 6th slot elsewhere or use an Achilles -resist proc.  And this where I'll note my practical experience with procs under the current ppm mechanics lacks.  My computer died as my first HC characters were hitting 50 and ready to get into their IO builds.  I can say pseudopets make it even messier, enhancing the recharge aspect of a power potentially reduces the likelyhood of the proc triggering and the Alpha Slot if it effects recharge is treated as if it enhances the recharge aspect ... and Spiritual definitely does that.  So I would be prepared to ask others on these forums how badly this screws with procs in your Earthquake.  Force Feedback is likely worth it as it's a huge if short boost to global recharge even if the chance to proc is low, same for adding an Achilles -resist proc as the debuff will benefit anyone hitting the target.
• Fortitude - 3 slots. This is the minimum slots I'd use.  There are simply a ton of very effective variations on the number of slots and what IOs can be used anywhere up to a full 6 slots.  This one maximizes slot efficiency at the cost of set bonuses other options provide.  I use 2 HO Membranes and 1 LotG def/increased global rchg.  
• Tactics - 2 slots.  Gaussian's To Hit and To Hit/Endred.  Normally I'd get a bit more endurance reduction slotted but again unless you're at 22nd lvl or lower you should have no endurance issues owing to Recovery Aura and even then I'd expect minimal problems between +recovery procs and set bonuses from PvP and Purple IOs.  If you find yourself going below 22nd with frequency then I'd frankkenslot 2×To Hit Buff/Endred IOs and boost to +5 if you do need to cut end usage. (And be sure to grab the +endurance Accolades as well)
• Super Speed - 2 slots.  1 BotZ -4 kb and a Winter's Gift rchg resist special.  Usually I slot a stealth IO in a Sprint so I can control which and how much stealth I have.
• Volcanic Gases - A bit like EQ, in VG I placed 6 slots.   Use 5 Purple Superioir or Will of the Conroller or 4 Basilisk to get the global recharge, then finish off with Lockdown +2 mag proc and Lockdown IO as desired.  This patch is your AoE hold and pretty much anything already in the patch short of AVs with PToD active or GMs will be held after you drop Fossilize into the mix (that's a potential 6 to 9 mag)
• Recovery Aura - 2 slots, a massive boost to recovery.  I used to do 3 and it might prove useful for exemplar.  For 2 slots straight up 2 × 50+5 recharge IOs.  With 3 slots I used 2 × Endmod/recharge + 1× 50+5 recharge IO.  The throwing silly amounts of inf at em option is boost them all.
• Vengeance - 1 slot, LotG def/increased global rchg 
• Animate Stone - Rocky or Pooman, is your pet and I think he's one of the best.  He's one of only 2 controller sets whose pet has an actual taunt built into their attacks.  You have Fortitude so when slotting him focus on the resist special IOs (Sovereign Right and Expedient Reinforcement) plus the Soulbound Allegiance proc and 3 more from Expedient Reinforcement (global recharge at 4 of them).  I'd generally not Fort him on a team setting (too busy buffing allies) but that really depends on the team.  He can draw a lot of heat owing to that taunt in his attacks and can really pack a punch with Seismic Smash.  Keeping him upright and tanking could be just the thing a small team needs.  He can tank an AV and unlike many armor sets he's immune to Psionic attacks so if the AV is a Psi user giving your Invulnerability Tanker fits have at them with Rocky.
• Regeneration Aura and Adrenaline Boost    5 slot both and use Panacea.  Regeneration Aura is a big boost to survival especially pre Incarnate.  This plus Adrenaline Boost on someone is like them running IH.
• Indomitable Will - okay this is one place all that global recharge can come in very useful on a personal level.  Perma IW means hordes of Malta and DE etc. are unlikely to mez you.  This is so valuable on a "squishy" I'd consider swapping this with RegenAura (so IW at 35th, exemplar to 30th with RegenAura moving to 41, exemplar to 36th).  4 slots at least one devoted to a LotG def/increased global rchg.
• Mind over Body - 4 slots and lots of hard choices.  I went with Steadfast resist/3% def special, 3 Gladiator's Armor -> resist, resist/endred, 3%def proc.  Boost the Steadfast to +5.
• Psionic Tornado - 5 slots, "nuts" I want 6 let the tweaks begin.  With 5 I'm going with Ragnarok.  Skip the straight damage and use the proc.  As a note that is pretty much always the case when 5 slotting a Purple (skip the single aspect IO and use the proc) without a very build specific reason to not do so.  That 6th slot would be for a Force Feedback proc.
• Maneuvers - a single slot, it's basically a mule for the 5th LotG def/increased global rchg IO.  But boost to +5 and run the toggle it's a useful mule 😋 and you should have the endurance to spare

Have fun with it.  It's definitely not your typical pairing but it's likely an extremely good exemplar support build.  Heh, I know it is.   My first and only Contoller Empath was Earth/Empath back on Live and was one of my first handful of 50's. 

 

Edit:  Oops, thanks to @Riverduskfor pointing out that gaff.  Corrected.

 

Edited November 25, 2021 by Doomguide2005
Correction

[Riverdusk]

5 hours ago, Doomguide2005 said:

 

• Animate Stone - Rocky or Pooman, is your pet and I think he's one of the best.    He can tank an AV though like many he has a Psi hole.

 

 

You sure about that or did you mean to say doesn't?  Still working on my earth controller so haven't tested personally, but per the in-game and city of data numbers he has 100% resistance to psi (which I assume is reduced to the 90% pet res cap in reality).  Smash is actually his biggest weakness (at 40%) followed by lethal (at 50%).  Those two +res pet IO's should definitely help there (pushing those to 60 and 70%) and something I plan on.  

 

 

 

Also, superspeed is a good choice, especially since you are picking up hasten anyway almost always.  But I think a lot of people overlook infiltration as a great travel power now (assuming you aren't already at the 4 pool limit).  Throw one universal travel IO in there and I'm usually getting around 80mph running/jumping, it has the same stealth as SS, better jump height than SS, and unlike SS you can slot a LoTG in it.

[Doomguide2005]

    Good to know about Infiltration.  I've heard similar but owing to dead computer no experience with it so didn't mention it.

   As for Rocky *smack* yes though the oversight was more to do with thinking about Psi defense rather than resistance though obviously defense isn't relevant since he won't generally care if he's hit because of that immunity.  Should have trusted my memories more since that's what my 'feelings' told me.

Edited October 28, 2021 by Doomguide2005