Is Plant Manip Good?

[drgantz]

I rarely see toons with this power, so I wonder if it is weak.

It has a protective toggle and an enemy debuff, so I think that it should be good.

[KaizenSoze]

IMO. The animations are a bit clunky. The melee attacks are pretty meh. It's not the damage of the attack, it's just one is a slow PBAOE, the other is a narrow melee cone. Only Skewer is good in actual play.

 

It is really good at immobilizing mobs. Slot for that, not for hold in Vines.

 

Vines->Blizzard, it's nasty.

[Spaghetti Betty]

/Plant is an incredibly strong secondary. While the melees aren't really anything to write home about, there are a ton of good powers.

 

I'm pretty sure the only other secondary that has access to an AoE hold is Atomic, and Vines is much better IMO. You can proc bomb it into a pseudo nuke! 

 

Toxins is an incredible buff. It's like Fiery Embrace, but it has a tiny Build Up component as well. 

 

It's also hard to argue with a free -Regen debuff anchor on a Blaster!

[ChetManly]

On 5/4/2024 at 7:22 PM, Spaghetti Betty said:

/Plant is an incredibly strong secondary. While the melees aren't really anything to write home about, there are a ton of good powers.

 

 

I've been eyeballing this set as I'm a huge fan of Plant already. AOE hold and some debuff, what's not to like. I usually don't play in melee as a blaster anyway so no loss there. Im always looking for something a little different and this fits.

 

Plant is already supercrazystrong on Dominators and Controllers, not surprised it's similar in Blaster form.

[Songseven]

On 5/5/2024 at 11:22 AM, Spaghetti Betty said:

It's also hard to argue with a free -Regen debuff anchor on a Blaster!

 

its also hard to argue with growing mushrooms on baddies heads!

[Force Redux]

12 minutes ago, Songseven said:

 

its also hard to argue with growing mushrooms on baddies heads!

 

generally my whole raison d'etre!! 😃

[Songseven]

26 minutes ago, Force Redux said:

generally my whole raison d'etre!! 😃

 

 sacre bleu!!

[tidge]

I opted for the Plant Manipulation secondary as a sort of self challenge, and this was my experience...

 

On 5/3/2024 at 3:06 PM, KaizenSoze said:

IMO. The animations are a bit clunky. The melee attacks are pretty meh. It's not the damage of the attack, it's just one is a slow PBAOE, the other is a narrow melee cone. Only Skewer is good in actual play.

 

By level 50, I ended up only taking Skewer, Toxins, Spore Cloud, Wild Fortress and Vines. The other powers simply did not offer any synergy for my chosen primary. The selected powers happened to offer either good opportunities for alternate sets (for bonuses) or required minimal extra slots. It isn't a terrible thing to have only five really good powers from a secondary!

 

I end up almost never even using Skewer, even though it holds a Purple set. I can imagine some players wanting to leverage the controls from /Plant, but it isn't my preference for Blasters to take single-target controls. I ended up slotting Vines with a little bit of %damage and the Superior Entomb's recharge/%Absorb piece. I agree that Vines isn't a great Hold, but it is a decent AoE attack.

[Yomo Kimyata]

On 5/4/2024 at 7:22 PM, Spaghetti Betty said:

Toxins is an incredible buff. It's like Fiery Embrace, but it has a tiny Build Up component as well. 

 

Would you mind saying more on this?  I see the description and formulae in City of Data (all hail Uberguy) so it looks like it adds a specific amount of damage to each attack rather than increasing the damage by a percentage but other than that it's not clear.  How does this work in practice and in comparison to a more standard build up type power which will have +20% to hit and +100% damage for ten seconds?  How does the additional damage work for damage-over-time powers?  Does it work for all powers, including temporary ones?  Is there any antidote or do I have to spend the next six months developing an immunity to iocane powder?!?

[Spaghetti Betty]

6 hours ago, Yomo Kimyata said:

 

Would you mind saying more on this?  I see the description and formulae in City of Data (all hail Uberguy) so it looks like it adds a specific amount of damage to each attack rather than increasing the damage by a percentage but other than that it's not clear.  How does this work in practice and in comparison to a more standard build up type power which will have +20% to hit and +100% damage for ten seconds?  How does the additional damage work for damage-over-time powers?  Does it work for all powers, including temporary ones?  Is there any antidote or do I have to spend the next six months developing an immunity to iocane powder?!?

I've never really looked too much into the specifics of it, but Toxins will add a toxic dmg proc to every one of your primary and secondary powers. Its duration is surprisingly long as well, so you won't have a lot of downtime using it on cooldown. I think you only get the initial tick on a DoT, but I'm unsure (and honestly, my Dark/Plant hits so hard that I don't notice DoTs ticking anyways). In minmax theory, this would actually make it better than a standard Build Up with a Kin on your team, since at that point, you can only increase your offense further by adding additional ticks of damage.

 

The only antidote is violence!

Edited May 22 by Spaghetti Betty