Ground Breaking Guide to Earth

It's hard believe me it's not easy to DPS Nex/Dox with Earth had a few embarrassing runs myself, however when it comes to melee I destroy most dps but range..meh. My biggest concern is that our range powers are 35% modifiers; Shards, Striking Stones, Upheavel, Pebble Blast, Stone, eGrip.

Rumblecrush is so bworked it's useless to use... only option is stay mid-range and hope you don't eat any splash damage and if you do die you're screwed because everything will be on cooldown. The biggest struggle I had with Earth in Nex/Dox are mobile targets IE Ninja, Future, Ravager, and Sentry which renders your main DoTs (totem/debris field) & JH useless.

Thanks for the great thread Alpha. Helped me break into tanking for the first time without too much trouble. I'm low 80's cr right now, having just started tanking three weeks ago, running this:

Mesmerizing Lasso - I love having two pulls and couldn't imagine going without them. I had noticed Lasso has a shorter cooldown for similar results to Grip, plus the grounding does seem to help immobilize certain targets like Healing Drones in Prime a little longer.
Epicenter - great for sizing up groups for my damagers as well as pulling back knocked backs from my PI cc or violent breakout mod, keeping them squared up for more cc, aggroing and damage.
Unstoppable - my aoe cc + aoe PI cc starter + team cleanse.
Jackhammer - Aftershock tanking is the bomb, even before it was 1 aftershock for full absorption.
Hard Light Shield - Supplementary shielding.
Gemstone Shield - usable-while-controlled panic button.

I haven't broken into T5 content yet so don't need shield powers very much. I have been wondering if I fit in Sonic Shout for a good frontal cone cc (or go grip+shards for the same effect) would losing Hard Light Shield be viable? Also, since I haven't seen a great iconic powers guide, how does SS compare to shards+crushed? In T5 raids is HL Shield a necessity and having the extra cc less critical? If there is a good iconics guide I'd love to see it.

When it comes to blockbreaking mobs, I have been exploring ways to keep protected. Amazonian Deflection is a possibility since I have the points to spare in extra iconics. I use acrobatic master mod and am curious to see if rolling and flipping can work in a pinch. I am dying to get a stronger staff so I can try the hold spin and see if it keeps off ranged damage reliably; if so I'd be pretty set. I'm going to be experimenting with each of these as I can but if anyone has insights on these I'd appreciate the help.

It's so painful when they take one step to the left and suddenly the jackhammer you almost died setting up is out of range...

Loadout is okay, though I know Alpha would balk at the inclusion of iconics in your build. I'll give my 2 cents. You really only need Gems and Jacks and a pull of some sort for most content. Having 2 single target pulls and an AoE pull seems like overkill to me, though you didn't say you spec them all together. Personally, I think Grip and Epicenter do just fine. Not a huge fan of Unstoppable, mainly because of the ridiculously long cooldown. HL Shield is fine, but I haven't used it. Gems + Jacks + Block = invincible pretty much. Never saw a need for another shield. If you want a stun move, I'd go with Sonic Cry, rather than Shout. It's a quick 360 AoE, rather than a cone cast. I used to follow Epicenter with it. Very effective. I've not messed with Amazonian Deflection. Another one I don't think is necessary. I recently changed to Acro, and I've been messing with Tumbling Master. Quite fun. I've heard good things about Staff deflection, as well.

Oh I think you misunderstood. I have 1 single pull, 1 aoe pull. I use lasso but mentioned Grip for comparison. Thanks on the tip for Sonic Cry; I think I caught wind of that around page 7 but it's a lot to dig through. I'll definitely use it and see how it goes. Also if staff's spin does the job then that's great news to me, so no need for amazonian. Thanks!

Alright AD is an awesome counter for block breaking mobs it also has it's uses in Dox and other content, but keep in mind if you get grounded it will cancel AD out entirely so you're back to square one.

Tumbling Master is an awesome mod, it gives you free juggles and can get you out of a pinch as long as the mob you're in doesn't have tall characters/minions etc (in which case you would have to jump out of). I personally use Explosive Block in combination with Formula of Crushing consumables to get out of sticky situations in T5. FOC knocks everything up at point blank range (360 knock up) which can give you time to rebuff/retaunt. EB is pretty much self explanatory I don't enter Dox without it EB + Pardox Scroungers = free immunity = free damage mitigation.

Lol, I know i'm vocal about Iconics but the only one i have issues with is phasedodge. I just don't think you really learn to tank when using phase dodge to clip everything. You are making everything safe and if for some reason something happens that you haven't learned yet and don't know what to do phase dodge won't save you. I just think you can tank fine without time especially ice and fire. They don't need iconic power so tank. Earth DEFINATELY doesn't need them because they offer nothing for us. They don't give us our full buff like they do for Ice and Fire so every time you aren't using Jacks your really are risking it. Like I've stated in the past. The T4 raids, t3 raids are played completely different than T5. You can take risks in t4,t3. T5 one mistake means death for a tank. This is why I really only tank with 3 powers Jacks, Gems, a pull. Anything else is just overkill. Its nice to have unstoppable for when you don't want to get knocked down but it doesn't stand us up so man thats why I hate it. There is nothing wrong with his loadout for the content he is doing. He will quickly realize that in T5 HL Shield is useless to us. It doesn't give us 50%, it doesn't block but 1 hit and its a waste of time to cast. I've been doing a hybrid tanking for nexus/dox. Brick, Damage Shift, Gem Shield, Epicenter, Jackhammer, EGrip. Keeping Brick and damage shift up using epicenter to keep aggro and using jacks when brick dies untill I can recast him. Its what has provided me with powers I can use other than jacks, it gives you more protection during your aggro windows. And the versatility is what sets it apart from other loadouts.

I need to respec into this sometime this week to give it a try. I did go down tanking for the first time in a while in Trigon's Prison, but I was playing a little loose. Wasn't really blocking much and AoS ate my lunch, LOL!

I really don't know what to do with earth

I decided to bring my earth tank in line with my other alts and to do so I decided to DPS for a while because I can get things done faster that way.

I was a kind of silent reader in this thread now for a while and tried different builds from precision based to might based and mixed. I speeced my test server toon to earth to run the might based DoT loadout in Nexus a bit and it was decent.. I know there can be many numbers and most of them are cumulative but after all they all are somehow small...
Still, I prefer the might based loadout more than a precision based one just for some flavour'ish reasons but there are imo two big issues for me and maybe I can get a few thoughts about these:

1. There is no real burst damage some other classes have and the DoTs are imho too small. Combared to Nature and Electricity who are both DoT-Classes earth lacks in damage when it comes to a small group or a single enemy that needs to be taken down asap, e.g. the Guise of the Nexus. With Electricity you have many nice DoTs and Electrostatic Bomb and Static Push can hit hard. Nature...well Nature equals Earth here a bit..it only has DoTs and maybe Impaling Thorns but the DoTs seem to be higher and more rewarding in those cases..

2. Rumblecrush. I know it and probably everyone else reading here knows it that this Power is - forgive me my words - freaking f***ing darn bad. The damage is more than only poor without the Weaponizing in the Iconics Tree and the Hand mod and even with those it hits for low damage.
And of course the biggest issue is that it gets blocked by nearly everything in the DCUO world. If there would be tiny flys and other insects they would probably block Rumblecrush from hitting, too. In the Nexus Hallways it is near to useless and in larger areas it still can be blocked by pets, players or whatever. I have seen it getting blocked by the Tank in the Trigon Alert only minutes ago. Or I am mistaken and didn'T see the number (but the PI was still missing and that I am sure).
I understand the dev team wanted a - what they would call - awesome iconic power where the superhero/villain grabs a huge rock out of the ground and smashes it towards enemies...nice idea but the realization in the game is over and over bad.
I would rather have a 60% Damage Buff skill where the hero/villain raises his arms slowly to pound the ground causing a giantic ground rupture hurtling towards the enemies where the ground finally explodes to cause the crushing PI and doing damage equal to every other 60% modifier...or at last like Mass Levitation..

But because this isn't the case I've decided to give Alpha's loadout that involves Crystal a try. And I really like it so far. It is very stylish to DPS with a pet and since Boulder Barrage is somehow fixed that damage is ok.
To apply the Crushed PI I decided to go for the Formula of Crushing since I have the Expert Plan and even though it is darn expensive because you are using it so often, it is nice. It lacks of cours of range but with enough movement abilites and if you are careful you can do it.

My current Earth Loadout is

Damage Shift | Debris Field | Shards | Totem | Crystal | Sandblast.

Before I decided to use Sandblast I used Rumblecrush on mobs and Earthen Grip for single target but as I mentioned I replaced the PI-Power(s) with the Formula of Crushing consumable.
I'm doing pretty decent/well so far but before I finally mod my IL85/86 gear with Expert Mods I'd like to ask for some opinions and/or experiences with this or similar loadouts, players may have.

I'm really looking forward to some comments since I like the earth concept and a bit more challanging way to dps. And maybe there are some Earth DPS out there beating Paradox and Nexus? I'm curious about their experience witht hat because honestly I didn't ran both as a true dps. Most of the time I ran with my earth alt was as a fourth dps when one of my league was solo healing to grap the loot. I know some might don't like that being-carried-thingy but I have a Main Trol CR100, a DPS CR98 and a Healer CR97 and honestly I don't want to repeat the process a fourth time and run the ops daily... After all I know how to play

I also hope that my english is understandable enough for all of you and the mistakes I might have done are minimal at last ^_^

Regards

Schimära

If you're going might based that's a pretty good loadout, although have you considered switching Reinforce (idk how many pp you have left after filling out your powers) with DS? Same cost/speed/clipping ability as DS with the benefit of extra prec and 7% crit chance. Small groups is more Daze's specialty rather than Crushes, but you do have Sandblast which is really the only single target burst attack we have. Most Earth DPS (myself included) go the prec route to compensate for the lack of burst powers but that wouldn't mesh with your playstyle. I'm guessing you are using the might gear with might mods (reds should still be prec/might), but what's your rotation for adds/bosses look like? That would help with suggestions.

I've tested every which way with Earth dps. If you try really ultra hard, you can be useful, but you will always be at the bottom of dps versus equally skilled other powers.

After Sorcery and Nature get their updates, maybe earth can get looked at. Compard to other powers, there just is a lack of initial damage, and dots fall short of other powers.

Earth can be great for short fights, but in sustained fights, like bosses, that's when you'll feel yourself falling behind.

...on the upside, it's darn fun to play.

Yes, I'm currently using the might armor even though I can still switch. Reason behind this is that I'm always trying to prove the worth of some classes since our league lacks of special classes on the edges (Nature, Earth, Electricity, Mental) which is why I choose to play the DPS role of my alts to show how to play with them and apparently it worked and we have some more of those now
Right now I'm trying to do the same with earth.. I think both loadouts can be fine but still I really don't know what is the handiest one in Paradox and Nexus.

My Rotation with my mentioned loadout is

for adds: Totem clip w/ Formula of Crushing -> Debris Field -> HB's Solar Flame clip w/ Shards 3x clip third with Damage Shift -> HB's Solar Flame clip w/ Formula of Crushing -> Debris Field.
I'm temped to use more Weapon Combos in AoE fields, I feel like I do more damage with Solar Flame than with Shards even when PI applied ^^ The Formula Exp does a nice AoE hit, too, Debris Field has the more reliable DoT thats why I wanted to keep it with a 50% buff.

The Rotation for bosses is not that different because SB doesn't do that damage when the boss is above 35% and it is nearly equal to a Shard hit with PI, below 35% I only apply 1 Shards per Rotation and replace the other two with Sandblast.

As for replacing DS with Reinforce that might be an idea -- I might want to test this out. I liked the shift to crystal though. It almost felt like am more resistant with my cr91 than some cr99 dps (or maybe this was just my better movement etc ^_^ ).

I'm going to test this out today and again a pure DoT Loadout tomorrow. Still, I can't see how Earth can compete in Paradox. Nexus always feels like being carried to me. But that might be because I'm still lacking in experience with earth..

Damage shift has to have some other ability/benefit added to it. Earth has a lot of issues, namely range dps and the tank buffs in general. But I always come back to earth because its still awesome. But damage shift for tanks is crap. I've been hybrid tanking with jacks and brick, sometimes I use damage shift alone, sometimes I let brick wander about and rely on jacks. But damage shift just sits there on my load out. Used once then never again, not for any benefit anyway. If only it added a shield to brick, or maybe set up a pi, or made him block for a few seconds, maybe a real second breakout, anything.
Can't wait til they look at earth.

Given the things they have done with Quantum and Celestial there are a lot of mechanics that could be updated into Earth DPS. First of all DF needs to have the dots stick to the target if they leave the field. That would help greatly and be easy to implement. They need to up the damage on Sandblast either with higher base numbers or additional ticks. Also remove the knockback.

I agree. A lot of petential, the go to description for earth. I just really want some love for damage shift too.

Totem will always do low damage compared to other classes dots but one way to boost it a bit is to never cast it first. Cast DS/Reinforce before you get to adds, then carry on your rotation as usual. You keep the 50% buff for DF which is good, numbers will bump up a bit if you can do the same with Totem. The decision to weapon combo or Shards 3x is a judgement call determined by how many were hit with FoC. Even then, I don't think Shards damage splits until it's more than 3-4 adds right? I would lean towards Spamming Shards 3x, but again judgement call. Against bosses or strong adds I would recommend not using Shards at all, clipping attacks with Sandblast instead, does more dam and gives you a higher dam buff. You said Shards with a pi does more damage than SB when above 35%. Idk how high your might is but I'm at 2400ish (I'm prec specced) and I've found that SB always does more damage to single targets than Shards with a pi, but I don't know if as might increases Shards surpasses SB. If the difference is negligible for you then your rotation is about as good as it gets. As far as DS goes, it adds 25% damage absorbtion which does allow you to take more punishment than any other dps class in the game at the expense of having a kind of useless (for dps purposes) power. Anyways good luck to you man, I've never seen a might-based earth dps outside of lower level stuff so I hope you catch people by surprise.

I keep hearing various opinions and many of them pertain only to Tank role, but is Dominance an important stat for Earth DPS; does it have any impact on Dazing effects or in Epicenter pulls? I'm just wondering if I should add SPs or Mods for Dominance or not worry about it.

Thanks.

Thank you for your post. I've ran at least Nexus with my Earth Char (2,1k might) only and I didn't felt that much like dead weight. I had actually removed the pet-part and went back to DoT stacking. Played with Earthen Grip, Debris Field, Shards, Striking Stones, Earthquake, Sandblast. I'm definately replace a skill (most likely Striking Stones) for Reinforce. But again, I've not felt like dead weight all the (still, I was a bit far behind the 3,2k Might Fire DPS and 3,1k Mental DPS). I'm not sure I will ever remove Earthquake again from my loadout. Since I also play my Controller as DPS and have a Celestial Char, I will probably never leave the house again without a 25% Supercharge if there is one ^_^
I've started to mod my earth toons gear with expert mods to climb up to 2,7k might and am really curious about next week

For dps, I wouldn't ever touch dominance. There is no point. I have 127 points and fill up all of the crit chance and magnitude, might or precision, then put the rest into which ever I didn't fill up between the two.
Dominance does not have an effect on dazing, or any pi, if you hit, say, tectonic break, and your target gets hit, it is dazed. Whether you have 10 or 10000 dom, it doesn't matter. For your pulls yeah, dom matters but why are you pulling things as a damager? That's for when you are tanking

I use pulls (Epicenter) in Solo/Duos to bring mobs together instead of taking them on one by one.