Cave In/Earth Set

bigshad24

Cave In: This ability should deal significantly more damage. It's a 50 ft, single target ability and it for some odd reason deals less damage than defile? There is no reason its damage should be as low as it is. My suggestion is to give it a 15% damage increase per stack of stagger for a 45% increase in total. This seems about right given its horrendous 50ft limit. Next, remove the useless stun mechanic, and make it a tier 3 ability. Either very few, or literally zero players use cave in for the stun mechanic, and being a 50 ft single target ability, that mechanic is useless anyway.

Fault Line: Remove the consume stagger mechanic. This ability is weak, there is no reason it should be consuming anything. Removing the consume mechanic would make it at least useable.

Upheaval: This ability seems like it should be on par with burning chi fist, given how it works. Making the damage boost from stagger +15% per stack instead of +5% would make it an attractive ability, and make it a tier 3.

Stone Shot: Add an advantage giving it a 50-100% chance to apply demolish based on charge time. Give it a passive ability to refresh demolish.

Earth Form: Have it increase crushing damage by the same amount that rad suit increases energy damage, and give it a passive chance to apply stagger similar to fiery form applying clinging flames. "Foes that attack you have a 20% chance to be affected by stagger."

This is my ideal Earth Set revamp, I'm curious to see what other folks think!

theravenforce

I think part of the problem is that damage is distributed very weirdly in the Earth Powerset.

There's a lot of "potential" damage that is never realised, so I would agree it needs to be streamlined.

Based on the way that the Earth Powerset is tiered however;

• Fissure
• Faultline

Should be its strongest, heaviest hitting powers.

This is so far from the case its laughable.

I would adjust the following (Mind you, if Cave In wasn't adjusted so recently, I would have changed my below suggestions):

Cave In

In an ideal world would be identical to Fireball. So:

- Remove Stun component from base power. Move to advantage. (New adv: Concussion 2pt advantage as it would be an AoE Stun)
- Increase Target Cap to 5, so deals Crushing Damage to Primary target and 40% of that damage to secondary targets within a 20ft sphere.
- Adjust Damage values to compensate.
- Keep Chance to Stagger primary target.
- Keep Demolish advantage but make it 100% on primary target, 20% on secondary targets (50% if they are Staggered).
- Keep New Adv (2): Staggers targets in a small area effect. Roots secondary targets affected by Stagger.

Faultline

Ideally, this should be one of Earth's strongest abilities instead of hitting like a wet noodle that actively counters your playstyle and energy unlock. If anything it should probably be a Force Cascade / Ego Blade Annihilation style power.

- Base Damage increased significantly.
- If target(s) are knock immune, increases the base damage by 30%.
- Consumes Stagger Stacks for bonus damage and applies "Shaken" debuff to targets for 2 seconds per stack of Stagger consumed.
- "Shaken" debuff applies 1 stack of Stagger on a target every 2 seconds. (Basically, 3 stacks of Stagger consumed = 6 seconds worth of "Shaken" debuff which primes your target with 3 stacks of Stagger every 6 seconds. Much like Ego Blade Annihilation does.)

Stone Shot

I hate the animation for this power with a rare passion. It needs to be reworked, we have great examples of Geokinesis/Earthbending in popular media, so I am baffled as to why this animation of super pooper scooper was chosen.

Animation aside...I'd actually make Stone Shot operate more like Fire Strike if its going to keep the 100ft range.

- Amend damage to combo spam like Fire Strike
- Deals Crushing Damage and has a 25% chance to apply Stagger
- Each use of Stone Shot increases the damage of the subsequent Stone Shot by 25% and this stacks up to 4 times. This effect is called "Tectonic Instability" and lasts 6 seconds.
- New Adv (2) Your "Tectonic Instability" buff now increases the damage of your next Earth Power by 10% per stack. Tectonic Instability is now also consumed unless you are affected by an Active Offensive (In an ideal world, this would be something like "Tectonic Titan AO which increases your STR and EGO and also increases your END for Destructive EU scaling temporarily").

Note: If this isn't favourable, I'd support an animation adjustment and giving it an advantage to apply Demolish. But ideally, it would be nice to have Stone Shot fill a "Fire Strike" style role in the set since its predominantly a melee to 50ft range set.


Fissure

Again...one of those powers that looks visually decent but does not deliver as much as you'd hope.

- Increase Base Damage
- Innate chance to apply Clinging Flames and Stagger
- Increase Energy Cost
- Increase Area of Effect from 15ft to 25ft
- Enemies who are affected by "Shaken" debuff have any existing knock stacks on them removed per tick so they can continually be knocked up/down.

(Note #2: I'd remove the Reconstruct advantage and make this into an in set heal ability that grants increased healing if you are near a Fissure or Earthquake or standing still.)

Earth Form:

I'm a fan of Earth Form, but I think the slow movement portion can definitely go elsewhere. Maybe be added to Quicksand instead at a base level.

- Tier 1 Earth
- Offensive Passive
- Boosts Physical damage, and other damage to a lesser degree.
- Adds a flat amount of damage absorption.
- Increases resistance to Crushing damage. Increases resistance to Physical Damage by a lesser amount.
- Chance to apply Stagger to targets you damage or if they damage you.
- Grants knock resistance, this knock resistance is increased by 100% if you are charging an ability.