Local_Man

Take a look at my Earth/Rad guide. The link in my sig works.

Do not put the heal uniques from Numina, Miracle or Regen Tissue in Radiant Aura -- they will only work for 2 minutes on yourself only after you use the power. Those need to go in Health.

EDIT: Oops, hilker beat me to it.

Well, an Earth/Rad has pretty good AoE control at level 4, even earlier than a Plant controller . . . not quite as good, but Stone Cages + Radiation Infection means that the foes can't move and they don't hit you very often -- which is almost as good as a hold. The main advantage is that it is continually available, as Stone Cages recharges faster than it expires and RI is a toggle. (In early levels, you spend a lot of time waiting for Seeds to recharge on a Plant Controller.) Add to that the large -Defense in Earth, especially when you add in Quicksand at level 6.

Still, I agree that a Plant/Kin (or /Rad) would make a good choice. My Plant/Rad is up to 49, and I think I'm gonna roll up a Plant/Kin on another server (ugh, more alts . . . )

Actually, you can have three holds with an Ice/Ice Blaster. Freeze Ray, Bitter Freeze Ray and Freezing Touch (melee). My Ice/Ice Blaster was the second character I made in the game, almost 5 years ago . . . and I finally got him up to 50 a few months ago. As a controller-type of guy, I really like the combo. Shiver made a huge difference in my survival. And then in the 40's, I went with PFF, Temp Invul and Force of Nature, but I find that I rarely have to use them.

I tend to play chicken . . . staying at range with Hover/Fly, trying to separate the groups, slow them down and then pick them off one at a time. Shiver+Ice Storm gets them all trying to run away slowly instead of shooting at me, letting me pick them off one at a time. I found my Ice/Ice Blaster to be great on teams and solo.

I would say that there isn't one single controller answer to your question. For example, if a team has several blasters, nothing is better than my Earth/Rad. He uses his AoE controls with all of its Defense debuff to make it easy to hit stuff, and if the team has plenty of damage, Earth/Rad acts as a multiplier, letting the blasters act like they are shooting fish in a barrel. The Rad adds more debuffs, a heal, a rez, and I even have Fallout for when Blasters do what Blasters usually do.

If the team needs damage, I will pull out my Fire/Rad. If we are weak on tanking or need someone to stealth several missions, then my Illusion controllers work well. On the ITF, one of my favorite characters is my Ice/Storm. While those guys resist a lot of control powers, Slows work great on them and they resist a lot of knockback, letting me use Tornado and Lightning Storm without holding back. Plant and Fire are good for doing damage to large groups, but not as good for hard single targets. Earth, Ice and Mind provide good AoE control. Illusion is great to distract those AVs, and Grav has good single target damage.

As for secondaries, Rad is always welcome. Rad gets several of its best powers early in the set for those low level TFs, and continues to be great even in the end game TFs. Rad provides a little of what everyone wants. Heal, buffs, debuffs, control. And the more Rads you have, the better the team will be.

Kinetics is usually very welcome, especially by Stone Tanks. Speed Boosting the team will help everyone do things faster, and in the late game, everyone knows the power of Fulcrum Shift to buff damage. If you have a bunch of Blasters, Speed Boosting them to use their nukes more often, then having Transference to recharge them with Endurance can really speed up a TF.

Storm is hard to play well on a big team . . . you have to learn when to not use many of your knockback powers. But a well-played stormie is a huge benefit to a team, with huge debuffs from Freezing Rain and various control and positioning powers. While you don't have any -Regen, the autohit damage from Tornado makes up for that -- great on AVs.

TA? I have an Ill/TA at 50, and he's been fun to play. He certainly contributes to TFs, but I generally feel that a Rad contributes more, other than the damage from OSA. TA's biggest TF weaknesses are low amounts of -Regen and ToHit Debuff.

Of the buff sets (Therm, Sonic, FF, Emp), it really depends on the make-up of your team. Many teams look for an Empath, so Empathy will get you quick invites. Personally, I think Therm is a better overall set, depending upon the team.

I might suggest looking at a Plant/Kin. Plant gives you good control and AoE damage for those low level TFs, while Kinetics gives a huge buff to the team for the higher level TFs.

First: There are these keys on your keyboard that are not letters . . . they are called punctuation keys. Using them helps people read and understand what you have written. Using an occasional period (.) and comma (,) and maybe even a question mark (?) will do wonders. You also have a Shift key for capitals, and an Enter key to break groups of thoughts into paragraphs. Try using all these special keys if you want people to understand what you are trying to say.

Second: The descriptions of archtypes and powers are imprecise. High damage in one set may not be high damage in another. Back in the days when Cryptic was running the show, "Statesman" didn't want players to have specific numbers, so the descriptions of powers used comparison descriptions instead of numbers. (Maybe that's why they were named, "Cryptic?") Our current Developers changed that by allowing us access to the numbers, but the power descriptions have not been changed.

Don't read much into the power descriptions, other than the fact that Minor is less than Moderate, which is less than High, which is less than Superior within one power set. When comparing power sets, use the actual numbers and not the descriptions.

On the Kick attack: When you "buy" it as an attack, you can think of it as training yourself to use this attack in a better way than a guy off the street. Your technique allows you to do more damage than the average guy. You can think of Brawl vs Boxing the same way.

Don't get too caught up in real-life comparisons. Certain things are done for game balance, even if they don't make sense. A prime example is the Propel power for Gravity controllers. One time, my Grav controller will throw a roll of pink fiberglass insulation that looks nice and fluffy, and the next time, he will throw a forklift . . . but both times, he will do the exact same amount of damage. It doesn't make sense but it had to work that way to balance the game.

I mentioned Gravity only because it has three single target damage powers which will benefit from Fulcrum Shift, and the positioning from Wormhole could be used nicely for giving you groups for your Kin Siphon powers -- and that is just supposition from my experience with the sets separately -- I don't have a Grav/Kin myself. To me, Fire/Kin, Ice/Kin and Plant/Kin seem to have the best synergy with Kinetics. I have a high level Fire/Kin (no PLing, however), and I'm thinking about rolling up a Plant/Kin.

Maybe someone with experience with the combo might be able to help . . . but it might be better to start a separate thread asking for strategy tips on Grav/Kin.

I agree that O2 is very useful on most builds. Of my four high level Storm controllers, I have only left it out of my Grav/Storm's solo build (since Singy can't be healed). I find it really helps teams with a timely heal, breaking Stuns (like after using a wakie) and End Drain protection. And it is very nice to have to heal up your pet (rather than having to re-cast).

With his resistances (plus more resistance from procs) and an occational heal, Earth's Animate Stone is almost unkillable.

Well, at level 4, you have a limited choice. On my Earth/Storm team build, O2 Boost was the best option -- better than Stone Prison, Snow Storm (about to get Quicksand), and already have Fossilize and Stone Cages. (My solo build took Stone Prison.) I find O2 Boost to be a nice power to have. I can heal up my pet between fights. I can un-stun and heal teammates who just used a wakie. And I can sometimes keep teammates from the brink of death. I often provide limited mez protection to an Emp, or some End Drain protection to the team tank.

I assume you mean Thunderclap and not Lightning Storm.

Thunderclap is questionable on any build that does not have another stun power -- since it is only mag 2, which only stuns Minions. However, it recharges fairly quickly for an AoE control power that sets up Containment.

Yes, the animation seems to take a long time, but it is visually very impressive -- it seems like it should do more than just a Mag 2 stun. But I have found it is very effective on my Earth/Storm and Grav/Storm, either to extend the stun or to stack it. As long as I can take a hit or two during the animation, it is quite effective when combined with an AoE Immobilize. Also, I use the Steamy Mist + Super Speed combo for full PvE invisibility, so the animation time affects me less. The foes notice me at the beginning of the animation, but that usually means that I get hit only one or two times if at all.

I was playing mine over the weekend -- went from level 29 to 38. Since I already have another Earth controller and several Stormies at 50, I knew what a great combo it would be. Most of my teammates didn't, and I was happy to show them. At one point, our team ***** (kind of like a village *****) aggroed 4 groups at once . . . I pulled out all the stops and the team was amazed that we handled it. We only had one death that I recall (sadly, not the *****). Earth/Storm is an AoE control monster. Stacking Stuns (Stalagmites and Thunderclap) is wonderful.

Edit: I'm sorry, but the word I D I O T should not be censored. It is one of the few reasonable insults left. I guess some form of excessive political correctness has taken over.

Thanks for the plug! Unfortunately, all the links seem to have been messed up with the new forums. The link to the Ill/Rad Guide now is http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=141225.

http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=141225

I suggest you take a look at my Illusion/Radiation Guide. The detailed discussion of the Illusion powers will really help you. Spooky's tendency to make foes run away was mostly gotten rid of back in, around I-6 or I-7. Spectral Terror is Illusion's best option for AoE control now, and arguably the second best power in the set.

There are some synergy problems with Ill/Kin. Phantasm's knockback will be a big source of frustration, and Kinetics has no Defense or Resistance Debuffs to make Phantom Army better. You only have a single target damage power and no AoE powers (other than what you pick up from the APP sets), so Fulcrum Shift won't give you all that much of a boost -- the team will love it, but you won't see nearly the benefit as you would with other primaries. I prefer Ill/Rad, then Ill/Storm, then Ill/TA over Ill/Kin (and I have them all).