Seismic questions - Take me to school, please!

[Grizlee]

 Hello! 

 

 As the title suggests I'd like to give Seismic a try. I've never played it and can't recall even grouping with it. My notion was to double down on the -Def by pairing it with Marine, which I love and am familiar with. I like the dual nature of it's lower level powers and also like the spectrum of de-buffing it offers. The buffing is-a very nice-a too! 

 

 My first question revolves around the seismic mechanic. I note that a few powers take the build up and "spends it" immediately to cause, in the case of Rock Shards, the dot to be instant and for double the base damage. This reads as a blessing and a curse, the knock down seems quite a powerful ability, do I want to interrupt that, necessarily? Also, if the answer is "Well, shaaa! Double damage my dude!" how do procs interact, if at all, within that process?

 

The powers in seismic seem a bit on the longish side, so I'm guessing this is going to want 140+ recharge? 

 

Finally, given my powers, which epic, in your opinion is needed or preferred? I'm inclined to go with Soul for Power Boost to enhance the secondary powers, or Leviathan for sharks . . . 

 

As ever, thank you kindly for any input.

 

 

 

 

Edited Monday at 02:00 AM by Grizlee
fixed a few woogly wordings

[Frosticus]

I have a marine/seismic/soul that I find quite enjoyable. I did it for the pure power fantasy of tsunamis and meteors- an extinction event.

 

So in before someone says "it's not as good as fire " ok...

 

To address your points:

Seismic waves will noticeably knock down enemies that get close, but once marine gets tidepool and whitecap you'll barely notice seismic waves, so don't worry about consuming them. 

 

Rock shards enhanced is a good attack, regular rock shards is ok in the low levels. The base rech is so low on the attack you probably won't use procs. Your final build probably won't have it at all because Marine pulls you into the centre of the spawn.

 

High global rech is always good, but not at the cost of more efficient slotting. Plus whitecap and upthrust both trigger ffb proc a lot. It's super easy to hit ~perma Hasten onyhisbuild.

 

I went soul cause  soulstorm looks so cool and makes sense for the character. Soul drain is still pretty good too.

 

Meteor is contentious. Cast it before doing other stuff. Cast it before putting down tidepool even, but definitely before upthrust and whitecap. You can land meteor, upthrust and whitecap at the same time  which is fun.

 

 

 

 

[Frosticus]

Fwiw you probably want to focus on one or two things to consistently use seismic forces on. You won't be able to empower everything.

 

I ended up deciding to primarily burn the stacks on aim as it knocks a chunk off of the base recharge of meteor*

 

Also do yourself a favor and get a knockback to knockdown converter in meteor asap. The knock on it is ridiculous and will scatter everything out of your marine debuffs.

 

*think this mechanic is bugged and doesn't take as much recharge time off as it should. 

[Grizlee]

@Frosticus Thanks very much for the input. 

 

 I hem'd and haw'd and finally decided to go with Nature over Marine. I've used ( and loved, as mentioned ) marine often enough. I want to get more in tune with nature 😄 

 

 My initial build looks like this:

 

 Richtery Garden - Defender (Nature Affinity - Seismic Blast).mbd

 

[Uun]

I've got a Nature/Seismic which I enjoy a lot. Regarding the Seismic Shockwaves mechanic, the power I usually spend it on is Stalagmite. It does a ton of damage when they're active. The other power I spend it on is Rock Shards, but that's primarily a radius/arc increase. Also keep in mind that the Seismic Shockwaves mechanic reduces the recharge of all your Seismic Blast powers whether or not they're active.

• Add more resist to Wild Growth. 
• Consider taking Corrosive Enzymes over Lifegiving Spores. Although Corrosive Enzymes is ST, it provides a hefty debuff vs. hard targets and doesn't require more than 1-2 slots. On the other hand, I find Lifegiving Spores to be skippable. 
• Upthrust does knockdown not knockback and doesn't require kb>kd.
• Optimal slotting for Entangling Aura is 2-3 end/hold IOs. 
• Slot Overgrowth for recharge and move the %bu proc to Seismic Force.
• Add recharge to Soul Drain. It won't affect your proc chances.

Uungnome - Defender (Nature Affinity).mbd