Earth dps/ tanking buff when?

So many good advices...but sadly they go to deaf ears.

This shows that you're just trying to shortcut things. The grind is part of the game. Recommend quing DPS while you're working on gear so you can get your marks/mats. Will you be overpowered?... NO, but it will give you a great chance to see the content from the other side so you'll have a better idea on how to tank it when your gear is where it needs to be.

I just looked at the US census and there are as of this post:
426 Fire max CR players
218 Rage max CR players
215 Ice max CR players
152 Earth max CR players
68 Atomic max CR players

So your little rant about no one being Earth is crap. There are only 68 Atomic characters where are all the "aToMiC dPs/tAnK bUfF wHeN?" threads?

I think you should post a video of yourself DPS'ing or Tanking a raid, so that we can watch it and comment on your gameplay. I personally think Earth is decent right now, it's probably not the best but certainly not unusable as you seem to be suggesting. It's not very helpful for anyone if you only make posts complaining about how your power is bad and ignore any and all advice.

Just had a 'bruh' moment. Thank you. This was truly funny and I needed a good laugh today.
I get that you are experiencing frustration. Some of us have been playing DCUO for more than a decade. Just think of all the knowledge and experience some of us have, that we are trying to share with you. You have to be willing to invest the time or invest the money if you want instant gratification. Either way, it takes a much greater effort to succeed than fail. It seems you might not want to put forth the effort.

As a max CR Earth player who plays elite and elite+ when I can be bothered as well as survival mode, your thread and that other thread have given me a good laugh.

Sorry, but, you're doing it wrong and the issue is not Earth, it's what you're doing.

Are you receiving 220k with brick out absorbing a percentage of your damage?

Also (was reminded be someone else) totem heals brick while fortify increases it's defense.

Along with my previous tips, I know it may take a while but mystic symbols 160 with the strat card 160-200 can give pretty good passive heals

Using an immunity with superman will give you a 3rd mitigation shield for 40% that should bring that 220k down to around 132k. It's high but with some passive heals you'll get from those Arts should make it more manageable.

I admit I'm not an expert with earth yet, but this seems solid. Let me know if this helps friend.

CR414 Earth Tank with 792 SP **This is pure tank build, not battle role**

Base stats

628,831 Health - this includes 5% Hearty Chest mod + Generator Mods x4 Health 45.4's
286,401 Defense
79,243 Restoration
112,702 Dominance - this includes Generator Mods x4 Dominance 45.4's - but is lower than max cause I have precision elite affinities

Alternatively if I use a Jackhammer build instead of Brick my defense increases to 429,602 with Stone Skin.

Skill Points are set - 355 Health, 355 Dominance as Primary - Focus: Hybrid

My Routine Artifacts are Manacles of Force, Lazarus Pit Water & Everyman Prototype. I will switch out the Everyman Prototype if there are going to be a lot of adds in exchange for Mystic Symbol of Seven.

I also have a Lasso of Truth artifact at rank 200 if I think I will benefit from add control and the increased control capacity, unfortunately however, Lasso brings with it other complexities such as unintentional Lasso aggro loss (that's what I've experienced and it's a bit of a pain) and can also result in your own death if you're less experienced, ill equipped and drag too many adds.

The Lasso is a niche artifact though that I'd only be using in a scenario with two tanks and if I was specifically tanking adds in a separate area, it is also an artifact I would not be leveling as a tank prior to the other 4 I have mentioned above.

My Routine Allies are Shazam, Poison Ivy, Superman & Lex Luthor. Shazam will be in the active slot because he heals (alternatively you could use Nubia) Poison Ivy is Passive, Toxic Touch, Superman is Passive, Inspiring Breakout and Lex Luthor is Passive, Exobyte Overdrive.

Lex Luthor is never taken off, If I was after the shield I would use Superman, if I'm after the debuffs I will use Poison Ivy, Poison Ivy is probably favored at this point because the debuff is beneficial to the group and the shield is not always necessary and the breakout also isn't always used.

The Brick Load out would be Hard light Shield, Earthen Grip, Fortify Golem, Brick, Gemstone Shield and Soothing Sands (breakout).

Brick can be a bit of a "dick" sometimes though so you have to expect him to die and be prepared for it, If I'm more greatly anticipating a Brick death then I might switch out Soothing Sands for the additional heal in Totem, especially if I'm running Poison Ivy and the group can go without a breakout or the Superman shield, it really just depends on the group and the content - it's a tactical call.

You could also alternatively swap out Soothing Sands for Amazonian Deflection or even Phase Dodge if you're after what are incredibly strong additional shields often forgot about, but also come with their own advantages and disadvantages, Phase dodge requires planned timing and Amazonian Deflection is strong but will root you in place and can be block broken.

The other thing I might swap out as well is Soothing Sands for is Unstoppable, it can be useful for controlling adds (is effective in the current raid also) where you're not wanting to give them immunity and that way you can basically permanently keep them controlled by rotating earthen grip, unstoppable and Chronometric Emitters within a Brick build.

The Jackhammer Load out you could go with could be Hard light Shield, Earthen Grip, Soothing Sands, Jackhammer, Amazonian Deflection, Gemstone Shield - you could swap a few of these moves around based on preference (perhaps even Dash attack) or even include Reinforce and introduce a rank 200 Clarion, although you might find it a bit challenging incorporating your weapon attacks with your Jackhammer and other things while less experienced, in my opinion attempting a Clarion build is not worth it below rank 200 and I'd be swapping out the Everyman or Mystic Symbol for it, not the Lazarus Pit or Manacles.

same principle really just without Brick, you've just got to remember to keep up your Jackhammer stone skin and you'll probably find you have to kite around a little more than with Brick.

I'm routinely also not spending a lot of time in block in either method apart from if I'm playing combat counters, because you're benefiting from fortified assault, I think being an active tank typically works out better than trying to be a turtle and use fortify blocking.

Personal Dampening Fields are also your friend for those times where you need to fill a gap, as well as Chrono's to suppress any adds, they can't hurt you if they're stunned.

I will also typically run a combat pet, but this could be switched for a 5% health buff pet and I will run a sidekick, because as negligible as it is it's still useful for taunting, the shield and the heal. If you know you're about to get some heat you can just pop it out and see what it takes from you.

If you're running a rank 200 Manacles and the Accelerated Gemstone Shield back mod from your vendor then hard light shield and gemstone should refresh by the time one is worn out unless you take a pretty big hit and remember those moments are also exactly why you're running Manacles and Lazarus Pit in the first place. Manacles because it will reset Gemstone, absorb and more evenly disperse the damage and Lazarus Pit for that absolute "Oh crap" I actually messed up and died moment - be sure to communicate this with your healer.

Even if I took a 200k hit in 2seconds this build more than allows me the time and tools to respond without death.

I would not be using a Strategist Card in any serious Earth tanking build or probably any tank build.

The problems expressed by the OP in this thread entirely come down to user error and a lack of experience with the power set, perhaps this post will help him, you and/or others, I'm not saying its necessarily the "perfect" build either, but it works for me, so if it helps anyone else, all the better - best of luck.

Cool build proxy, & thanks for being detailed

I guess my thought process was b/c of how much defense & mitigation earth naturally has, the Everyman & Manacles wouldn't be mandatory with it. Since the op felt he needed some form of heals to further mitigate damage the strat card would crit off of the symbols in a never ending cycle & gaining an additional 15-20% defense. Was also thinking since earth grip is a "stun" pull you could toggle between it & Chronos for the needed CC's but didn't know upheaval was also a CC move.

Thanks for opening up on your playstyle & understanding

Wait ...Are you face/turtle tanking? In what content?

Earth Tank is pretty good, though you have to have two armories depending on the content. Pet builds don't work well a lot of bosses, so you would need to use the aftershock build. Acro's Perfect Poise is a good SC for earth. <3

Earth DPS has a lot of problems with its non pet build. The biggest is that most of the powers are big power costing/slow powers and not a lot of in between and light/fast ones.

Then there is jackhammer, which is melee. It's friggin amazing, but you gotta get closer than you really should. I did some tests with just hitting jackhammer vs other builds and you can do within the powerset and it flows well with just hitting the PI and jackhammer away, only restarting the jackhammer after a few aftershocks or when you resetup the PI. (Debris Field.) The problem is... it's just you hitting 2 powers and aftershocking the entire time. lol

But in the end, Earth is in an okay area and I would like to see it reworked at one point a bit or at least give it a few more attacks that are in the mid to fast range to give better fluidity.

No problem, I would probably consider Manacles to actually be a mandatory artifact, that's why I suggested swapping that last slot being Everyman/Mystic Symbol, If I were to take one off for Lasso then it would also be that one just because of the overall strength of the other two.

The amount of times Manacles has triggered and ultimately probably saved my life cannot be understated, because of its damage spread, you then combine this with Lex Luthor and so forth and you start to build the overall picture. It obviously also shortens the shield cool downs and resets Gemstone if it's quickly destroyed and you take that big hit.

I get what you're trying to do with Strategist card, it's not something I've personally tried and not something I'd see as being the norm, so with that in mind, give it a go and see how it works for you, I'd probably be doing after I'd leveled everything else though and for that reason it's definitely not something I'd be recommending to a new player

Not going to lie, I do have two armories, but then again I actually have 16 armories total I can set up, so perhaps a moot point. I don't actually typically run my Jackhammer armory at all and instead I have Battle Tank, Single Target, AOE and Brick Tank as my active armories.

There's is very little content that absolutely requires you to run Jackhammer instead of Brick if you're a good Brick tank and anticipate his death and have plans for it. The only time I'd typically consider taking Jackhammer is if there are a lot of adds and depending on how hard those adds hit, you might think the new raid is one of those examples, but funnily enough it isn't despite all those adds, I've routinely Brick tanked it.

If an instance requires Jackhammer, you'll identify it really quick and can either go in with the Jackhammer build manually or take your armory then, remember a tank isn't typically using armories mid fight because they're rarely if ever going to be able to move out of their role even if someone dies and certainly not if they're solo tank, so going in with a preset build you have no intention of deviating from isn't really that bad.

The biggest problem typically with an Earth tank and Brick is when the players through a moment of absence forget about Brick and forget to fortify and power him, those deaths are actually on the player and it's easy to become distracted by other tasks you might have going on, always be ready to clip your Brick summon with something, a shield or personal dampening fields, so if he does die he's immediately back out alongside extra protection for yourself.

Remember too, if you're choosing not to take a breakout (soothing sands) you're not necessarily without yourself, use a PVE breakout trinket on your build for those moments you really want immunity for yourself.

Sorry, not all of this was aimed at you Bumbling, merely a segue into additional commentary.

Pretty much how I go into bosses. There are a few bosses, like the Anniversary Elite raid, where you can't have Brick out at all. He instantly dies and you are spending most of your time re-summoning him. That's what I was going at.

I've tanks most of the elite content, save a few harder ones due to our league having dedicated tanks. Plus, I'm back to gadgets now anyways. Just Earth is like my second favorite powerset in the game. <3

What if I told you I Brick tanked the elite anniversary raid heaps of times

I'd say, "Good for you? You are better than me."

lol, nah I didn't mean it like that, but actually yeah that was one of the raids in the past I've had some people say "how are you Brick tanking this"

Sorry but Offline, despite his method of presentation & expression, is correct to a degree.
In my opinion, it seems we are at the same event back when Earth had its very first power revamp with over 100+ pages during the original T5 DLC Nexus of Reality & Paradox Wave era suggesting ideas to help buff & improve the power but now in 2023. I’d even go as far to say that stats revamped caused the power Earth a major set back to having its original problems resurface from the past in present day Dcuo. Epicenter continues to serves no purpose, Brick can’t last in hard/elite content nor can healer powers efficiently & effectively heal Brick, totem is useless &, the mitigation from Aftershock alone isn’t cutting it as usual when compared to Fire, Ice &, Rage survivability. (Atomic is super doomed ever since stats revamped but that’s not what I’m here for).
The major issue I’ve noticed with Earth along side it’s original issues that still exist now is that, unlike the other Tank powers, if you block (whether intentional or not), not only do you lose the defense give to you for not blocking when you do block (which I agree with because it’s stated in the tool tip) but, you lose the Stone Skin from Aftershock which leaves you 1000% vulnerable to death. This is unfair to the highest degree.
When Ice blocks it loses the defense from blocking but it shields from its power(s) interaction continue to deflect the incoming damage.
Fire continues to gets its heals from its powers while losing the defense buff when blocking.
Rage still gets its health back from the damage it takes through the crash mechanic while losing the defense buff when blocking
Atomic keeps its aura to get heals from the last combos performed & protection from the aura when blocking.
But when Earth blocks while having its stone skin, it completely disappears, so, why can’t earth when blocking still keep its stone skin to mitigate damage? Why is Earths aftershock mechanic tied to blocking but not the rest of the tanking powers? Surely this can’t be intended? That doesn’t make sense at all.
Correct me if I’m wrong but didn’t they make it to where all of Earths moves when Aftershock tanking, refresh the stone skin? If so, I’ve noticed inconsistencies with Earths powers. Earth grip sometimes does & doesnt refresh my some skin once I get the aftershock going. That needs to be fixed. In general, Earth needs to have more aftershock moves for times where Jack hammer isn’t a viable to use other than gemstone shield. Doing this will also give options to those who want pure power moves & not rely/crutch on iconic powers & movement mode SC. Too this day adding a jump animation to Jack hammer was not the smartest thing to do, is the biggest nerf to a power that’s already struggling &, needs to go back to automatically punching the ground when earth was first released.
Atp I’d say it’s clear that Earth having two Tanking mechanics that can’t even benefit from each other is not good & the power needs another rework to something that can combined the aftershock & pet absorption to create something totally brand new.
Overall, yall can say I’m bad, it’s me not the power, I need to do better, improve, just switch powers, troll in general, etc but I know what I know with my experience. Even the ones that defended Earth not needing a buff it in this thread, if you go back over what you typed, you still despite defending it, managed to mention problems with the power Earth. Someone else posted numbers about the amount of ppl using the power & it being low so the numbers & stats don’t lie.

Earth and Rage dpa are mid with range but melee it's great. Now Earth tanking is nice though I struggle with iron skin Earth is nice. I gotta say what's your arts, allies and augments because it sounds like a you problem.

Just to let you know it's been about 0 days and I still don't have elite tank gear. I still have 3 artifacts at level 0 on my tank.
I left earth. Earth is and will always be one of the worst powers.
I went from dying as earth in any content to surviving as fire.