Earth / Time - all support, no slaughter?

[ninja surprise]

I've had this Earth/Time slowly leveled up to 50, always teaming; mostly TFs.
It's great for control with lots of holds, slows, debuffs, etc, but squat for damage. 

 

Can this combo be built to do damage solo? Or is it an epic team support build only?

[Meknomancer]

Depends how you build it. Those debuffs will significantly increase your damage if you have attacks you can use such as fissure for your aoe and seismic smash for single targets. If you don't mind the ugly rock armour which you can't minimise. Slowed response+quicksand+earthquake will mean mobs have almost 0 defence or resistance. SR+Earthquake take procs. So does stone prison/stone cages/fissure/seismic smash. Problem with proccing them is you drop a lot of recharge and defence bonuses and while rock armour+farsight will give you a big bump there you leave yourself with very little resistance when you do take a hit.

 

Slowed response is an underrated debuff. Achilles+LG+SB procs with some acc+rech thrown in and it'll do good damage on top of debuffing.

 

Or you can just build for support, totally depends on how you want to slot it. Times Juncture does huge -to hit and lowers incoming damage and can take the dark watcher and pacing of the turtle proc effectively increasing your defence and lowering the number of attacks coming your way which means you can get away with not softcapping if you don't mind playing up close and personal, mob should be fully controlled anyway, earth is one of the best sets for this.

 

Messing about in mids it looks GD awful but you never know til you try it out. Test server is there for a reason.

 

 

Spoiler

This Hero build was built using Mids Reborn 3.4.7
https://github.com/LoadedCamel/MidsReborn

Level 50 Mutation Controller
Primary Power Set: Earth Control
Secondary Power Set: Time Manipulation
Power Pool: Fighting
Power Pool: Speed
Power Pool: Leaping
Ancillary Pool: Stone Mastery

Hero Profile:
------------
Level 1:    Fossilize    
D-Sync Origin:D-Sync Efficiency

Level 1:    Temporal Mending    
 (A) Preventive Medicine - Chance for +Absorb
 (7) Preventive Medicine - Heal/RechargeTime/Endurance
 (9) Preventive Medicine - Heal/RechargeTime
 (9) Preventive Medicine - Endurance/RechargeTime
 (11) Preventive Medicine - Heal/Endurance
 (11) Preventive Medicine - Heal

Level 2:    Stone Cages    
D-Sync Origin:D-Sync Efficiency

Level 4:    Time's Juncture    
D-Sync Origin:D-Sync Obfuscation
 (19) Dark Watcher's Despair - Chance for Recharge Slow
 (21) Pacing of the Turtle - Chance of -Recharge

Level 6:    Quicksand    
 (A) Endurance Reduction IO

Level 8:    Time Crawl    
 (A) Tempered Readiness - Accuracy/Endurance
 (21) Pacing of the Turtle - Accuracy/Endurance

Level 10:    Kick    
 (A) Empty

Level 12:    Stalagmites    
 (A) Superior Will of the Controller - Recharge/Chance for Psionic Damage
 (23) Superior Will of the Controller - Accuracy/Control Duration/Endurance/Recharge
 (23) Superior Will of the Controller - Accuracy/Control Duration/Endurance
 (25) Superior Will of the Controller - Endurance/Recharge
 (25) Superior Will of the Controller - Control Duration/Recharge
 (27) Superior Will of the Controller - Accuracy/Control Duration

Level 14:    Tough    
 (A) Gladiator's Armor - TP Protection +3% Def (All)
 (27) Steadfast Protection - Resistance/+Def 3%

Level 16:    Distortion Field    
 (A) Tempered Readiness - Endurance/Recharge/Slow
 (19) Pacing of the Turtle - Endurance/Recharge/Slow

Level 18:    Earthquake    
 (A) Force Feedback - Chance for +Recharge
 (29) Touch of Lady Grey - Chance for Negative Damage
 (31) Achilles' Heel - Chance for Res Debuff
 (31) Dark Watcher's Despair - Recharge/Endurance
 (31) Dark Watcher's Despair - To Hit Debuff/Recharge

Level 20:    Time Stop    
 (A) Superior Entomb - Recharge/Chance for +Absorb
 (33) Superior Entomb - Accuracy/Hold
 (33) Superior Entomb - Accuracy/Hold/Endurance
 (33) Ghost Widow's Embrace - Chance of Damage(Psionic)
 (34) Gladiator's Net - Chance of Damage(Lethal)
 (37) Neuronic Shutdown - Chance of Damage(Psionic)

Level 22:    Volcanic Gasses    
D-Sync Origin:D-Sync Optimization

Level 24:    Farsight    
Hamidon Origin:Cytoskeleton Exposure

Level 26:    Animate Stone    
D-Sync Origin:D-Sync Empowerment

Level 28:    Slowed Response    
 (A) Touch of Lady Grey - Chance for Negative Damage
 (39) Achilles' Heel - Chance for Res Debuff
 (40) Shield Breaker - Chance for Lethal Damage
 (40) Shield Breaker - Accuracy/Defense Debuff
 (40) Shield Breaker - Accuracy/Recharge
 (42) Shield Breaker - Accuracy/Endurance/Recharge

Level 30:    Chrono Shift    
D-Sync Origin:D-Sync Conduit

Level 32:    Weave    
 (A) Luck of the Gambler - Defense/Increased Global Recharge Speed
 (48) Luck of the Gambler - Defense/Endurance

Level 35:    Fissure    
D-Sync Origin:D-Sync Efficiency
 (43) Positron's Blast - Chance of Damage(Energy)
 (43) Javelin Volley - Chance of Damage(Lethal)
 (43) Force Feedback - Chance for +Recharge

Level 38:    Rock Armor    
 (A) Luck of the Gambler - Defense/Increased Global Recharge Speed
 (39) Reactive Defenses - Scaling Resist Damage
 (39) Reactive Defenses - Defense/Endurance

Level 41:    Seismic Smash    
D-Sync Origin:D-Sync Empowerment
 (45) Mako's Bite - Chance of Damage(Lethal)
 (46) Gladiator's Strike - Chance for Smashing Damage
 (46) Touch of Death - Chance of Damage(Negative)

Level 44:    Hasten    
 (A) Recharge Reduction IO
 (50) Recharge Reduction IO

Level 47:    Super Speed    
 (A) Blessing of the Zephyr - Knockback Reduction (4 points)

Level 49:    Combat Jumping    
 (A) Luck of the Gambler - Defense/Increased Global Recharge Speed
 (50) Kismet - Accuracy +6%
 (50) Shield Wall - +Res (Teleportation), +5% Res (All)

Level 1:    Brawl    
 (A) Empty

Level 1:    Containment    
Level 1:    Sprint    
 (A) Empty

Level 2:    Rest    
 (A) Empty

Level 1:    Swift    
 (A) Empty

Level 1:    Health    
 (A) Panacea - +Hit Points/Endurance
 (48) Miracle - +Recovery

Level 1:    Hurdle    
 (A) Empty

Level 1:    Stamina    
 (A) Performance Shifter - Chance for +End
 (46) Performance Shifter - EndMod

Level 47:    Speed Phase    
------------

| Copy & Paste this data into Mids Reborn : Hero Designer to view the build |
|-------------------------------------------------------------------|
|MxDz;1621;713;1426;HEX;|
|78DA75944B4F535110C7FFF7D1F22AF27E0915DAF26CA1501337AE8C88890A0909E|
|E49A3051A4BDB944BA2891A1FF10BB87161A2C6078A2C8C6ED4B8D11077F20DFC00|
|BE1013572E4C9D73E70C1C219CE4F6FE7ACE9C99FFCC9C73A72E9E086D7C9A3C06A|
|B7E3C975E5A9A1D2FE4BD522197CB942AA796BDB4972DE4A146053D3D3B8B62979C|
|4897BC05F917310C8E2FCFCD25CF661733B353E97CB6B89C635FB5D305DA75323BB|
|FE065F3F3D5FEBF996226733EE4E364265DA4F91AB6CA29B3C68962F65C72C62BE4|
|95AB252F53BAD4AEC4D073D952D2FC1F35CA0160D801522E6C9CB2352C5A3EB8987|
|03444C9CE75104492E17EF31E379B6C1BC40F864A7C17F8C6508DAF025F18AE58CA|
|89E1C6C21BF82B21441D0D76C08703B86B6988B3887A51F380D438DB5E50761CF48|
|B491F4323DE7176CD78C56EAED22B606C4200118E7D8FDC55182B5605562DBDF905|
|834DCDAD82B1B90A651AB846CB3566423558E33C5AF15C6095A11DCF049E321CC40|
|A8343EE6B4D05B5382C266D341F76F19044D699267558636D8D78C9709D5E0D8618|
|B701B7B8085DD86038840F044D0ADECACC6B864714A0C9325269C247D75FE9C17B8|
|175017D642272647A91669D37E8D56256A4455A1C91CE6E6F8A899B98743F8611EE|
|DF6352D366A46BB7A1C5D2918EC237E9C511869BB4D06196A643CE6F97C01372D76|
|9AAEA948AF44B45061074FC0C06600B380C430830AC909BB019298C510E302AE052|
|2BBB4D936E113E8A7A067561A2A698A85466488EFA901CF5B8542F2E258A4B53D50|
|5EC334BD42791FAF1DBD1B0C5F027040C9A2107A5F4C348D81A74AD867181438E60|
|D0D1304B3303F459A0E41266720924D83625102393A4795392F8CC015A6965CCD43|
|B267A53F80BBFBE299CE1885D2ECC51568FBA6FE15DF3E5C97D0CA75DE373A5E62D|
|9EDFAC36BF633BF65BBBE609238E6EDB69CB4FFEE73E5B7FEDDD7AC7D675BBCDB01|
|EFFBF28E57FEBA3D016|
|-------------------------------------------------------------------|

 

[Scarlet Shocker]

Earth isn't traditionally one of the high damage sets. It's very much a "lock 'em down and tickle 'em to death" vibe - and from memory I don't think Time adds to that greatly.

 

That said as Menomancer says your buffs and debuffs will do a lot to improve the damage you actually do. But if you were to add a couple of more damaging pool sets such as Force of Will and maybe a damaging Epic you will do a lot to improve your damage output quite a bit.

[Area Man]

Earth Control is probably the third lowest damage Control set (after Ice and Electric).  You can add damage by adding procs, but not a bunch.  On the other hand, it is the best AoE control set.

One of my first 50 characters was an Earth/Storm.  However, Storm has two nice damage powers in Tornado and Lightning Storm.  For his Epic set, he HAD to take Fire because of his name, "Earth, Wind n Fire."

 

Solo, my strategy is to run around invisible to lead Rocky into groups to grab aggro, then control the group and pick them off one-by-one.  It isn't fast, but it works.  Rocky has both +10% Pet Resistance procs, which makes him pretty tough.

[SeraphimKensai]

As others have set it's not a flashy high damage control type, but it's pretty safe. If you want more damage I'd incorporate arcane bolt, enflame, and water spout. Given the AoE nature of enflame and waterspout you can clump mobs up with your controls and floor their stats and have at them.