Ben_Arizona

So now can we see some Kheldian story content that non-Kheldians can access without a Task Force?

It is my personal belief that the reason Kheldians are less popular than Spiders is not entirely a matter of mechanics (although Spiders being mechanically better doesn't help), but rather because when you unlock the Soldier of Arachnos villainside your response is "oh man, I can play as one of those guys I keep fighting with the cool weird attacks!" and when you unlock the Kheldian your response is "..a what now?"

ITF, Moonfire TF, one or two non-story-arc missions from contacts that you frequently just won't see on the way up. I think some clues on Tobias Hansen's story arc might mention Nictus too. That's your heroside exposure to Kheldians unless you're already a Kheldian yourself, and it can make the whole thing seem stapled-on rather than "Wow, I can be one of these guys now!" Give us more Kheldian-related content for non-Kheldians, let us get to know them like the other factions, and it'll be a lot more satisfying when you unlock your own whatever level it happens at.

I should clarify: "cut back on Earthquake for control". It remains, as you note, a fantastic debuff patch.

If Earthquake is not one of the best powers in earth/cold, it is because those two sets are packed with fantastic powers. That said, I find it an excellent staple control, and don't find the arguments in favor of Stone Cages generally compelling.

This is my character as I have never seen her before! I have no idea why this is.

By a "real control", I mean that it does not reduce the enemy's ability to take action on its own.

You call Stone Cages the only AoE control that will be up every group, and then you immediately talk only about using it in pairing with Stalagmites. In my eyes, this situation has Stalagmites applying the actual control element, with Stone Cages being used to minimize side-effects of Stalagmites. While Stone Cages does this very well, and I do not deny that it does this very well, I feel that Quicksand does well enough in this regard given that Stone Cages is not otherwise a very good power. If you do not feel that Quicksand minimizes the effects of Stalagmites well enough, then certainly go ahead and take Stone Cages.

(You may not think that Quicksand or Snow Storm is otherwise a very good power. This is of course your personal taste, and de gustibus non est disputandum. For my part, I find their debuffs much more useful than a little extra wander reduction on Stalagmites.)

MentalMaden, you say that "too much emphasis is placed on the flippy floppy powers". This is because the typical practice, as Local_Man describes and my experience reflects, involves alternating between Earthquake and Stalagmites as an opener control on a fast-moving team, and while flippy-floppy is a nice side-effect for Sleet it is the basis of Earthquake's control aspect. Emphasis is placed on the AOE knockdown because one of Earth's two fast-recharging controls is an AoE knockdown field. For my part, I feel too much emphasis is placed on nullifying the wandering from stun, but I at least acknowledge that someone who finds that more annoying than Quicksand can handle will be seeing it often enough that I can understand wanting to do more about it. Saying that an earth/cold puts too much emphasis on his knockdown fields is like saying that a plant controller pays too much attention to Seeds of Confusion and Carrion Creepers: it's because they're critical powers you'll be using a lot.

Edit: I should probably clarify something. I tend to see a lot of people's advice being that Stone Cages is essentially mandatory for an earth controller because otherwise the wander from Stalagmites is unmanageable. I did take the immobs on my earth/cold, but I found from personal experience that the wander was greatly mitigated by Quicksand, to the extent where I stopped bothering to use the immobilize after Stalagmites if there was a quicksand patch. Since Quicksand applies a large defense debuff, I use it very often, and eventually ended up just going with a Quicksand + Stalagmites combo instead of Cages + Stalagmites. At that point, I was using the immobilizes solely for -fly and extra damage, and the extra damage contributed was not terribly significant, even slotted for damage. I started using Snow Storm for -fly instead, and eventually respecced out of the immobs entirely. I have not missed them. I do not say that no earth controller should ever try taking them, but they are also not nearly as mandatory as they are made out to be, nor is Snow Storm as low-tier a power as people like to make it out to be.

I may be a bit strange, but I took both Quicksand and Snow Storm, and respecced out of the immobs entirely. My reasoning is as follows.

First, why I dropped the immobs: Earthquake + Quicksand is my primary means of control. Stalagmites is extremely useful for filling in when Earthquake is not up, but its duration is too short for it to be as "standard" as Earthquake. Because I am so heavily using Earthquake, the immobs have the potential to be counterproductive: they can keep stunned enemies from wandering, but Quicksand (which is essentially perma) can keep them mostly under control without then interfering with an Earthquake I may want to lay down when/if Stalagmites wears off. So, taking the immobs for the sake of actually immobilizing enemies is not terribly helpful. The reason I had taken the immobs before respeccing was to have an extra source of damage when solo. At 32, Animate Stone drastically reduces the need for this; if I exemplar down below 27 I will lose that, but barring the urge for Ouroboros soloing, if I exemplar below 27 I will be on a team, where the damage from the immobs is a joke anyway and having more control/buff/debuff is far more useful to me. So, that's the argument against the immobs for me - they could be a bit useful on the way up, but I wouldn't keep them and sort of wish I hadn't taken it to begin with.

Now, as to why take Snow Storm when I've already got Quicksand: First off, Snowstorm is an AoE -fly. This is extremely useful for keeping things in your debuff/control fields (quicksand, earthquake, volcanic gasses). Second, it's a massive toggle -recharge; even +2s will be attacking only half as often with it going. Against large groups of enemies with particular "problem powers" (mezzers, sorcerers, shamans, just about any enemy with a significant debuff power) this will have a significant impact. Yes, it drops if the anchor dies or you get mezzed, but that's a problem that any toggle debuff has, and /rads get by somehow. Snow Storm's not a power for every situation, but if you remember you have it and use it appropriately you'll be glad you took it. It's probably one of the more skippable powers in Cold Domination if you absolutely must shave some picks, but that's mainly because CD is so full of delicious things.

I have an arch/dev. It doesn't steamroll +4 as well as other builds, but other blaster builds have trouble farming the Cimerora wall on common IOs and SOs, so, y'know. There are tradeoffs. It's not like you can't pull your weight on a steamrolling team without Build Up; any reasonably AoE-enabled blaster is going to add a significant amount of punch with the amount of buffing that flies around on a steamroller team.