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I'm at work and don't have Mids at the moment, but looking at your build, here are some initial thoughts:
0) if you're not getting a set bonus, and just slotting a straight enhancer (like heal in O2 boost) it is far cheaper to just slot a standard IO then a set IO.
1) That panacea proc is going to be harder to get than the entire rest of your build, and really won't have that great a benefit. If you're planning on purchasing we're talking 1.5-2 billion influence, and if you're planning on getting it with hero merits, there are better things to purchase. I'll assume that you just didn't realize the cost of this IO. If you actually have this IO, then I will recommendation of what you should buy when you sell it.
2) Since you seem set on the high defense build, I would look to fit a steadfast protection 3% defense in there since its a sizeable hunk of defense for minimal slots. And that's only one hero merit (do 10 tip missions and a reinforcement mission) or 125 standard merits. Either stick in Maneuvers, Steamy Mist or Hover. Actually in hover, since that Shield Wall you have in there is also VERY expensive.
3) Again, if going for defense, 6 slot moonbeam with executioners contract (that's a 3.13% ranged defense bonus). The key with set bonuses is to focus your attention. Don't try to get a little bit of everything, focus on one thing. With just 2 and 3 you've added 6% ranged defense with minimal chance to the rest of your build.
4) If you're gong to be getting the LotG plus recharge (they can be expensive), put them everywhere you can! Stick one in Maneuvers , and I'd try to fit one in hover.
5) I love recharge in Tornado, but if going for a defense build, I would ditch that recharge IO for the last Blood Mandate IO (that's 3.75% ranged defense)
6) %Build up in tactics is wasted, it will only have a chance to go off every 200 seconds, and may not be when you want it.
7) You want recharge in PBU, +to-hit doesn't really matter. I would pull a slot out of there to do one of things I've recommended above, and slot 2 recharge in it.
8) In i19 when you get the inherent fitness pool, grab conserve power, you will want it. -
Quote:Well, if you wanted to do AVs you would probably be best off with /sonic for the stacking res debuffs, but going for +1x8 its aoe damage is less. Also, I suspect most sets could solo AVs since I can do it on my storm/psy.What would be the most effective secondary to pair with a Storm primary for purely solo play? PvE only, hopefully able to manage +1 x 8 or better, not interested in soloing AV's happy with Elite Bosses.
Jak
Your best bets are probably /ice, since Ice Storm and Blizzard use blaster modifiers rather than defender values, or /dark since Dark Pit(aoe Stun), tenebrous tentacles/night fall makes a nice AoE attack chain with some decent control added in.
Although Archery should also be able to get a decent AoE attack chain going, you would have to wait until Rain of Arrows at 38 and you wouldn't get any additional damage mitigation from your secondary.
Although personally I like /psy, Psychic Scream and Psionic Tornado animate slower and have longer recharges than the AoE powers in other sets making it less than ideal for what you're looking for. -
Quote:True, although in three years, he can use O2 boost on his buff pet to get the proc to fire, but in general you are better off slotting them in Stamina.You have to use the power in order for the procs to go off. Solo you have no one to use it on, so for that, I'd stick with Gale.
However, I will reiterate a point I made in my longer post, and that is that if funds are an issue, it may be better to make one build for teaming and solo, rather than 2. If you're not going to use Gale then it doesn't matter one iota whether you took Gale or O2 boost when solo.
In terms of sets, for just two slots in O2 boost you can get 12% regen, or 2.5% recovery, whereas with Gale you really need 4 slots to get a worthwhile 3 points KB protection (1.88% defense for three slots isn't all that great for most builds). -
Since you say you've been reading the posts on the forums, I'll assume you've seen the guide in my sig, that has just about everything I have to say on powers from Hurricane and below. My move and now badging has me stalled on the guide, but I should be getting back to it soon(tm).
As with all advice, filter it through your play style because what works for me may not work for you. As a side note, posting the datachunk with the build makes it easy for us to import the build into mids so that we can examine it and play around with it.
Since I can't pull your build into mids, eyeballing it, it looks like your are building for defense. If a high defense build is your goal, then you should consider working maneuvers (3.5% defense) or weave(5% but it takes 3 power picks) defense into your build. This will of course be easier once the fitness pool becomes inherent in i19. That said, in general I tend to build for recharge rather than defense (I have a high defense build that I use to solo Archvillains, and a high recharge build that I pretty much use any other time). I find the joy of stacking Tornadoes and Lightning Storms far outweighs the safety of the additional defense. I usually only run at +1x4 (no bosses), so if you're hoping to take on 8 man spawns solo, then some additional defense is useful, but as your comfort with the set improves you may find that the additional defense is not as essential. High recharge builds also have the advantage of being able to get by with fewer attacks.
Unfortunately, high recharge builds tend to me more expensive, so for a lower end build, defense may be the better choice. Although something to consider, if influence is an issue, then having one build that is both team and solo means that you don't need to pimp out two builds.
As for your lethal defense concerns, in general when building for defense with set bonuses postional defense (melee, range, aoe) is much easier to achieve than typed defense (smashing, lethal, fire, cold, energy, negative, psychic). Of the positional defenses, ranged defense, is really the only one you need to worry about as you will essential soft cap yourself with hurricane and dark blasts debuffs. there are few enough aoe attacks, that aoe defense is not as important (although ask any SR scrapper pre evasion and they'll tell you I'm wrong) There is a fairly detailed explanation of this in my guide both under hurricane, and under steamy mist. If you decide not to go the defense route, then you can free up some slots by not 6 slotting for defense bonuses, but again that's play style.
My biggest question on your build is, do you really want blackstar? Some people love nukes and think they're great. Personally, anything that drops all of my toggles is something that I would much rather skip. -
Quote:Wow...**blushes** thanks Local. I would like to think of it in part as a community effort combining my own experiences with advice I've seen over the years. I don't expect though that this guide will be anywhere near as complete as yours, but largely because we have different aims. My intention is for this to be guide about Storm Summoning, independent of secondaries, and to provide advice that all Stormies can use to play better (although I have a clear focus on defenders). As such, I do not intend at this point to provide any builds or secondary specific synergy advice, so there will be large areas that won't be covered by the guide, but that is by intention.Since I mainly hang out on the Controller boards, I hadn't seen this draft . . . and it looks awesome. My Ill/Rad guide is pretty massive because I tried to include a lot of detail and strategy, but you seem to have out-done my efforts on Storm Summoning. You have great information on mechanics AND strategy AND detailed numbers. You have put some nice effort into formatting and using a few colors to make it easier to read. I'm generally critical (even if I don't say anything) on most other guides, but this one section is looking like this may be the best guide anywhere when you finish it. I need to look at the other sections.
Quote:I saw a few typos here and there -- do you want us to point them out?
Quote:You may want to post a link over in the Controller forums, since Controllers are Stormies, too. (I have Ice/Storm and Ill/Storm at 50, plus 2 Earth/Storms, a Mind/Storm and a Grav/Storm in the 40's, plus a lower level Plant/Storm.) Granted, the numbers are a bit different (and you might want to include the Controller numbers), but the slotting and strategy are somewhat the same.
I'm still unpacking boxes from my cross country move, but I should be back to working on Thunderclap in the not too distant future. -
Quote:Good catch I will update that on this version rather than waiting for the final version.I think your doing a great job! On that note Sleet is available at 26 on a defender not 28.
Quote:pretty good coverage! Hey, re-spell Basic Version (take out the T) lol, its distracting.
Quote:"233% recharge (18 seconds recharge, after 40 seconds): At this point you have 5 seconds of -105% res, -90% defense, -210% speed, -150% recharge followed by 20 seconds of -70% res -60% defense, -170% run speed, -130% recharge."
That window of time, if and when a character is able to create, is a phenomenal time to detonate their AS......
Quote:A possible damage formula combined w/ Ice Blast's Blizzard and Freezing Rain, and one w/ FR power-stacked DURING the AS....
Quote:you able to plot out a formula for Achilles Heel and loading up FR w/ at least 3 "chance 4 Damage" IO's? A person kind of bored looking for fun can load up FR this way and see havoc wreaked on groups lol. Ive visually tested this and as numbers roll, its real hit and miss. Its very fun to see even con mobs get "1-shotted" on the outset and other tougher guys get critted REALLY bad from seriously "good rolls". From what i observe, seems like everyone has an even spread/chance on each roll, so there's a good chance that a few mobs will get "multiple" Chance 4 Damage, stacked w/ FR's debuff and the Chance to Debuff.
Quote:Also, i would highly suggest Achilles Heel over 1 damage proc. In fact, i wouldnt even suggest slotting in a damage IO at all. The application is burst over location DoT, which isnt always effective since they can step out of location during the duration. Achilles Heel will affect the mob more adversely than the lousy damage FR does per mob. Take into consideration teammates will be able to do more damage w/ Achilles Heel proc'd mob than your FR's damage proc. AH will be even more effective over damage when you compare to the effect done to AV+. I like the gamble anyhow...
Quote:For slotting FR/Sleet, i would have a Recharge IO and 4/5 IO set in it for global bonuses. If 4, then you got room to stick in AH. Presently, on my mains (Ice), its 1 Recharge IO and 5 Positron's Blast. This gives you 95% damage, 2.95x accuracy lol, 68.9% Recharge, 47.7% end cost, IO set bonus gives +2.5% recovery, +1.5% F&C resist, +9% global ACC, +6.25% global recharge.... -
I support option 1 because the costume creator is already pretty full as is.
Also, I would think that players with lower settings might choose a legacy option giving their character a worse look to those with higher end machines when they didn't mean to.
If there was an item that was changed generating tremendous nerd rage I imagine it might be easy to reinstate that item with relative ease. -
As Deranged Polygot said, definitely not worth it in Lightning Storm. On the other hand, depending on your playstyle, it can be quite powerful in Gale or Hurricane.
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Quote:Two different ways of thinking about recharge. I tend to use the 400% rather than the 500% (including the base recharge), since I think it makes the recharge formula:The rech cap is actually 500%, +400%, but we start with 100% for the purposes of figuring things out.
360/5 = 72 seconds at cap.
Recharge_Time = Base_Recharge/(1+Recharge_Modification)
eassier to understand... rather than using the formula
Recharge_Time = Base_Recharge/(Recharge)
but use whatever works best for you. Regardless it boils down to the same 1 minute 12 second recharge + activation time. -
My Vote and then some thoughts:
1. Toxic Shia
2. ChristopherRobin
3. PyroNympho
Drama makes me sad,
So I was thinking in the shower this morning about ways to run the FArt contest in the future to eliminate some of the troubles that we've seen this year.
Quote:I think the monthly Art Jam is a good idea, but I suspect that people like the idea of an over arching contest where they can come out on top....so...here's what I was thinking:That's a cool idea... a monthly art jam where anyone was welcome might be fun.
Every month anyone can enter for that month.
The first place winner for the month gets three points, second place winner gets two points, and third place winner gets one point.
All submissions are valid, voters decide how well the entry adheres to the guidelines for that month. (Maybe a no NSFW requirement)
Any contestant who said they were going to enter and fails to submit an entry gets -1 point (but can of course rejoin on any later month).
I figure this way people can decide based on their schedule and interest in the theme if they are interested in competing in any particular month and folks that come to the contest late can still have an opportunity to participate without having to wait a whole year, and may have the added benefit of providing us observers with MOAR ARTZ!
I am sure there are many flaws with the above idea to, but just brainstorming. And a HUGE appreciation to Wassy for being the FArt Mistress this year and to all of the contestants, I've enjoyed all of the work that you have produced and hope that the contest continues for many more years. -
Quote:Well, the recharge cap is 400%: http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/LimitsWhat would it take? I'm a walking mob paralyser and I love my cold/ele fender. But exactly how much recharge would be needed to get Heat loss as low as humanly possible? I know at 6m's it can't be made perma....sooooo
TIA!
So 6m/(1+4)=1.2 minutes = 1 minute 12 seconds
The debuff lasts for 30 seconds so that 42 seconds of down time + the activation time or 44.17 seconds down for every 30 seconds up.
However, you won't be able to reach the 400% recharge cap without external buffs. -
I'm in the middle of moving across country at the moment so it may be a while before I get back around to checking the ticks in PvP, but I haven't forgotten.
Quote:I've found that I keep learning new things in the process of writing this guide as well, it's been a fun experience.From a 5 year player and from someone who's first 50 was a Storm Rad Defender, very good info. I didn't know about the some of the max info on slow and such. I sure didn't know about the rain bug.
Quote:A few possible additions I can think of:
In the 'How do I protect allies with Hurricane?' section--It might be worth mentioning that pushing enemies off ledges can be good for protection in emergency situations. It's a good way to put an enemy out of the fight for ten or fifteen seconds. Or, in the case of Lord Recluse's bane army at the end of the LRSF, you can negate them entirely by fighting on a tower and keeping them all on the ground with Hurricane.
I'd also point out that, if you can get enemies into a corner, it can be great for keeping them in patch powers that usually have Avoid components, like Ignite.
Quote:About Herdicaning, I think the aggro cap is 17. (Issue 6 patch notes)
Hurricane was certainly significantly weaker for a brief period, but once they reverted the change in PvE I don't remember it feeling that much weaker to me. As I've mentioned before I think this may be a case of memory playing tricks on us or the repel duration issue. Regardless, I stand by the numbers provided in this guide for PvE and recommend that someone check PvP before taking my word on it. -
Well, here is the Castle quote that Hurricane was changed back.
Quote:Although I can't find patch notes going back far enough to ensure that it made into the live build, but that combined with my own testing is enough to convince me that the PvE ticks are every .25 seconds.This is as good a place to put this, as any:
I checked in a few Hurricane changes today that QA is going to look at. In Theory, these changes should mean that for PvE, Hurricane acts Exactly as it did before the previous change, while in PvP, it should act exactly as it does currently. Hopefully this change will get a green light from QA -- I've spent quite a bit of time on it over the last few days.
The fact that so many enemies are getting into melee range I think is perfectly understandable with the way that I understand repel to work. I believe that repel only effects enemies who aren't moving, therefore as long as an enemy keeps running they can get into melee range (Assuming the KB doesn't get them). They can then fire off an attack at which point they will start to be pushed backwards. Now if the repel used to only last for .25 seconds it would have been much easier to position mobs with it, since there would have been less of the chaos causing glide after they left hurricane. I think this effect could be what is causing the belief that Hurriane's repel has been significantly nerfed.
Looking at Red Tomax's site, in PvP the repel only lasts .75 seconds which if the power ticks every 1 second means that there is a significant period without repel and if this was indeed the case with the PvE version as well, it would have been a huge NERF during the time that this change was active.
As for the ticks in PvP, I have not been able to find a post saying that the tick rate was increased, so it may still be at 1 second, I still need to test it on a player in PvP and probably won't get around to it until Sunday night. -
Quote:StratoNexus, on what are you basing your belief that the tick is every one second. There was a period where for PvP purposes that the tick speed of Hurricane was reduced but after much complaining from the community Hurricane was returned to its quarter second tick speed in PvE play and the reduced tick speed was left in for PvP play (which I believe is half a second, but might be 1 second, I haven't verified this).Unless it was just changed, the tick rate for Hurricane is not .25 seconds (much to my continual disappointment), but is, instead, 1 second.
If you could convince the devs to rectify that, I would be grateful.
In PvE though you can verify that the tick speed is .25 seconds by pinning an enemy in a corner and watching how often they are knocked back. I tested just now to be certain and in 25 second I had 5 knockbacks. Now if the tick rate were only 1 second 5/25 = 20% which is quite a bit higher than the 5% chance that Hurricane is supposed to have. However 5/(25*5) = 4% which is about the 5% reported. Now it is possible that the tickspeed was reduced and the knockback chance was increased, but I have seen nothing to suggest to me that this is the case. Now I could be wrong about the PvP number, I just pulled that from my memory and it could be 1 second, I will have to get someone to test it with later this weekend -
Appendix: Hurricane
How do I perform -toHit calculations? (Hurricane Example)
Once again we must return to that handy to-hit formula:
HitChance = Clamp( AccMods × Clamp( BaseHitChance + ToHitMods –DefMods ) )
HitChance: This is the chance that a mob will hit you
BaseHitChance: All mobs have a base to hit chance of 50%.
ToHitMod: any mob up to 5 levels higher than you has a ToHitModifier of 0. To see what happens with higher level mobs see: here
Clamp limits the value to being within the 95% to 5% range. so if the value inside clamp is under 5% it becomes 5%
DefMods: This value is how much defense you have.
AccMod: This is the accuracy modifier of the mob and depends on mob level and rank:
0 : 1.0
+1: 1.1
+2: 1.2
+3: 1.3
+4: 1.4
+5: 1.5
Minion: 1.0
Lieutenants: 1.15
Bosses, Elite Bosses, Snipers: 1.30
Monster, Giant Monster ArchVillains: 1.5
Thus even if you are at the soft cap for defense, a +4 boss still has a (5*1.4*1.3) 9.1% chance to hit you, and this value cannot be lowered any further using defense or to-hit debuffs because of the Clamp.
When calculating Hurricane's to-hit modifier it is important to remember that it is effected by the purple patch, so your debuff will be less effective against higher level enemies. It is also important to note that higher ranked enemies also have to-hit debuff resistance:
Lieutenant: 10%
Bosses and Elite Bosses: 20%
ArchVillains and their scaled Down Elite Bosss: 85% (scales with level as seen here)
Hurricane's base To-Hit debuff is 37.5% which when slotted to the enhancement diversification cap is ~60%. This means that when slotted minions up to +2 will be at the soft-cap:
HitChance = Clamp( AccMods × Clamp( .50 + (-.6*.8) –0 )) = Clamp( AccMods ×Clamp(.02)= Clamp(1.2×.05)= 6% hit chance.
Of course, you also have Steamy Mist so you can actually be at the soft cap for +3 minions.
Against bosses who have a 20% to-hit debuff resistance you can soft cap against +1 bosses without steamy mist and against +2 bosses with Steamy Mist:
HitChance = Clamp( AccMods × Clamp( .50 + (-.6*(1-ToHitResistance)*PurplePatch )–SlottedSteamyMist ))=
Clamp( AccMods × Clamp( .50 + (-.6*(1-.2)*.8)–.08 ))= Clamp( AccMods × Clamp( .50 + (-.384)–.08 ))= Clamp( AccMods × Clamp(.036))=Clamp(1.2*1.3*.05)=7.8% hit chance
Against an AV, A fully slotted hurricane will provide the equivalent of:
+0 AV: 9% defense (.6*1.5)
+1 AV: 8.1% (.6*.15*.9)
+2 AV: 7.2% (.6*.15*.8)
+3 AV: 5.85% (.6*.15*.65)
+4 AV: 4.32% (.6*.15*.48) -
Hurricane (Basic Version):
Hurricane is an area of effect toggle debuff focused on the player that will reduce the to-hit and range of enemies caught in the debuff as well as repelling them away from the player and having a chance to knockback. Because hurricane debuffs enemies, if you are held/slept/stunned Hurricane will toggle off and need to be turned back on once you are free.
Should I take this power? 4.5/5
Hurricane is another one of the defining powers of Storm Summoning and although it is not appropriate to use in every situation, it is such a strong power that you would be foolish to skip it. This power on its own can create an essential no melee zone and slotted can provide maximum protection against most even level enemies hit with the debuff. The power can also be used to position enemies and to pin them in corners. That said, if you don't learn how to use this power it can annoy your teammates tremendously. So take the time to learn how to use it, because although a powerful debuffing tool, it can also be a complete chaos maker that may cause your team to lose fights. You probably should not always have this power toggled on, but this power will likely save your spandexed behind more than the rest of your powers combined once you learn to use it with tact.
How should I slot it? (basic version)
Like most storm powers, this power has a significant endurance drain, so if you are planning on using Hurricane with some frequency, stick at least one endurance reducer in it. In addition, when you tag enemies with hurricane, you don't want there to be any chance of them hitting back, so I recommend going for the enhancement diversification limit on to-hit debuff so that they will have almost no chance of hitting back.
Hurricane (Advanced Version):
What are Hurricane's Stats? (For Defenders):
Available Level: 12
Activation Time: 2.03s
Recharge Time: 10.00s
Endurance Cost: 0.65/sec
Accuracy: 1.00X (However this power is autohit)
Power Type: Toggle
Target Type: Self Effect Area:AoE -- 25.00 ft. radius (16 targets max)
Attack Types: AoE
Effects (@lvl50 although only KB magnitude scales with level)-60.00% strength to range on target (Ignores buffs and enhancements) for 10 seconds.
Wait...so what does that mean?
-37.50% to-hit on target for 10 seconds
1.00 magnitude repel on target for 1.05 seconds
5.00% chance for 8.31 magnitude knockback on target
Every .25 seconds Hurricane will apply a 60% range debuff a 37.5% to-hit debuff on the target for 10 seconds. This debuff does not stack, and each subsequent tick of Hurricane will simply refresh that 10 second timer. Thus you can tag an enemy with hurricane and it will remain debuffed for ten seconds afterwards. In addition there will be a repel effect applied to enemies within hurricane which will push them away from you if they are standing still. This effect will continue to apply for one second after they leave hurricane's area of effect. There is also a 5% that a magnitude 8.3 knockback will applied to enemies for each tick of hurricane. Note that Hurricane will only tick once every half a second in PvP.
Strategy:
Why does to-hit matter?
To-Hit is worthwhile because it is equivalent to adding defense to everyone that the debuffed enemy is attacking. If you debuff an enemy's to-hit by 20% you have effectively just given you team 20% defense against that enemy. If you look at the to-hit equation here you will see that defense and to-hit modifications are applied in the same place. Furthermore to-hit doesn't care what the attack type is (type: fire, cold, smash, etc. and positional: ranged, area of effect, melee) all attacks will be impacted equally, whereas most defenses only apply to specific types of damage. That said, defense is usually better. Whereas your teammates will only get a benefit against the specific enemies that you have targeted with a to-hit debuff, defense will provide protection against all enemies with attacks of the types the defense is for. More importantly though, to-hit debuffs are subject to the purple patch which means that it is less effective against higher level enemies. Also higher ranked enemies (lieutenants, bosses, arch villains) resist to-hit debuffs as described here, in the to-hit calculations. Defense on the other hand is equally effective against enemies of all levels and all ranks.
What is this -range?
A range debuff reduces the range of enemies' attacks. This means that enemies with range attacks must be closer before using them. Melee attacks are immune to -range modifiers, and the range of attack cannot be reduced below 25% (75% debuff). This means that enemies that are knocked away from you by Hurricane are more likely to run back towards the Hurricane because they cannot fire their attacks from as far back. This will also serve as damage mitigation since enemies will need to run in before firing after getting knocked back by Hurricane. This will also allow you to herd more gracefully as shorter attack ranges means that enemies will need to clump more. This will also make it easier for you to flee in safety if you are overwhelmed because you are out of range sooner. This power also allows you to help the tank or main aggro magnet by tagging enemies that are staying at range in order to force them to close some of the distance.
What is repel? Is it knockback?
Repel is not knockback, and will not be enhanced by knockback enhancers. Repel is an effect which pushes enemies away from you (along the vector between you and the enemy) when the enemy is standing still. The enemies can still run into hurricane, but as soon as they stop moving, even if it's just to attack or standing up from being knocked down, they will start being pushed away. With Hurricane, even if they just brush Hurricane, they will be repelled for 1 second. You should also be alert because some enemies that are resistance to knockback are susceptible to repel (Romulus Augustus in the Imperious Task Force for example) so be careful you aren't pushing an enemy all over the map with repel when you don't mean to.
Can I take alphas with Hurricane?
Alphas refers to the alpha strike or the initial attack by a group of enemies where they all fire at once. If you have hurricane slotted for -to-hit, then yes you can. Jumping into a group of enemies with hurricane will floor their to hit, essentially putting you at the Soft Cap against them. Unfortunately, the repel and knockback from hurricane may scatter the mob and make it harder to keep the whole group tagged with hurricane and more challenging for the team to mop up the group with their area of effect attacks. However, if there is no one willing to take the alpha, you certainly can.
Tanks usually feel that it is their obligation to absorb an alpha strike, however I find that at lower levels (even when exemping) tanks often do not yet have the defenses necessary to handle that burst damage. If I see this is the case, especially in a pick up group (PUG), I will allow the tank to face plant a couple times to demonstrate that he cannot handle the alphas. The second time, is to give him the benefit of the doubt and a chance to modify his play style. At that point I will often announce that I can handle the alphas from here on out. Jump into the mob to debuff and absorb the initial hits, then jump out to let the tank take over and use hurricane to push the mobs that you've just blown all over back towards the tanks to establish aggro.
What is herdicanning?
Herding refers to the process whereby one player get the attention of several mobs and brings them all to a location for the team to attack. This is usually a tactic used by a tank, but can also be used by a Storm Defender with Hurricane. To Herdicane, turn on Hurricane and run through several mobs making sure to tag them all with Hurricane so you won't get hit. Then break line of sight and wait for all of them to come to you. Because Hurricane effectively soft caps you against all enemies you can do this with relative safety. However, remember that the aggro cap (maximum number of enemies you can have focused on you) is 16, so if you try for more than that, you may end up leaving several behind. This tactic doesn't need to be used solely to herd, but if at any point you find yourself in over your head, break line of sight and turn on hurricane (if it wasn't on already) and position yourself so that mobs reaching you must pass through hurricane and be debuffed. Interior hallway doorways are ideal for this ploy although any corner can work.
How can I use Hurricane to lock down bosses?:
The easiest way to lock down a boss with hurricane is to pin it in a corner. If you can get the boss in a corner then the knockback and repel from hurricane will keep it there, for the most part, while the to-hit debuff will ensure that he can't hit anything. For added precaution you can use Gale to help keep him off balance, or use [LINK to come]Tornado to juggle the boss. Hurricane will keep the boss in the corner, while tornado will keep the boss in the air, effectively rendering it in a permanent state of knockback and therefore unable to attack (although in certain rooms the bosses can be knocked up onto pipes or other ledges that they can attack from, but then the to-hit debuff should defend you).
If you don't have a corner, then it requires more work, but you can use a flat surface like a wall, and constantly position yourself so that the knockback (a vector directly away from you through the target) goes into said wall. It is important to stay positioned like this, or else the knockback may send the enemy you are trying to control flying down the wall, at which point as you try to chase it, like the mime with a hat, you will keep knocking the enemy away, and possibly into another group. If the enemy is trying to move in a direction you don't want to go, move past him to blow him back in the opposite direction. Although a more active pin than a corner, it can still be effective.
Can I use Hurricane as a positioning tool?:
Yes, absolutely. There are Storm Defenders who delight in running circles around mobs to push them into Freezing Rain, into the tanks taunt aura, into range of [LINK TO COME]Lightning Storm, etc. However, be careful with hurricane as it has a 25 foot radius, so while running around trying to position a mob, you might accidentally tag another group and draw them into the fight when you don't mean to. Also, since hurricane repels with occasional knockback, it is possible when trying to herd a group of enemies for one to slip around behind you and then get knocked back in the opposite direction of the rest of the group. You can also use hurricane to attempt to keep groups of mobs clumped together so the [LINK TO COME]Lightning Storm will continue to hit multiple targets.
How do I protect allies with Hurricane?:
There are a couple techniques for defending with hurricane. One is the storm fortress, in which you essentially stay stationary (you can summon a Lightning Storm above) and create a no melee zone for squishies (blasters, controllers, defenders, squids) to retreat to and blast away from. If they find that they have attracted too much melee attention they can run back to where you are. It is usually a good idea to let your team know that staying inside hurricane will provide protection from melee attacks. This technique works best if the blasters, controllers, and defenders usually like to hang back rather than running into Melee range and they are outputting enough damage to draw aggro. If no one is attacking them, then using hurricane is just a waste of your endurance. The idea with this tactic is not to just stand around, you should still be attacking, using Freezing Rain, O2 boost, and all of your other storm powers from your vantage point.
In a similar vein you can use Hurricane to create a barrier between one mob and your team. this can be especially useful in the case of ambushes when your team is still fully occupied with the three mobs that the player with scrapper lock just rushed. Clearly this works best in a hallways, caves, or some narrow space where enemies would need to pass through hurricane to get to the team. Simply stall the enemies there, picking them off one by one, while you wait for your team to finish up and come assist you.
A more active approach to defending is tagging enemies. To do this you run around just brushing enemies with hurricane, since as long as an enemy is hit by a .25 second tick, the to-hit debuff will persist for 10 seconds afterwards. Thus, if your team is all spread out, you can run around hitting groups scattered throughout a room. However, remember that you are a ball of repel and knockback, so a scrapper won't appreciate it if you knock all of the enemies away from her. Thus the goal of tagging is to hit enemies without disrupting their positions. Regardless there will still be the repel effect, so try to repel enemies in the direction of a wall if they are close to one to make things easier for the melee archtypes. Be careful when running from group to group that you don't inadvertently knock enemies all over the place on the way. As before, if your teammates appear to have the defenses to survive without your debuffing, then save your endurance and focus more on attacking and other storm powers.
An alternative way to tag is to toggle Hurricane on and off so that although there will be repel, enemies are less likely to be knocked back. Remember, when toggling on, that hurricane has a 2 second activation, so enemies won't start getting debuffed until about the time the hurricane has expanded to its final size. This saves people from having their screens obscured by hurricane and conserves your endurance as well as reducing knockback. However, it is time consuming and you may have better powers to use with that time.
If you see an ally is clearly in over their head and is going to go down (but remember, folks have powerful tier nine abilities and many have self heals so low health doesn't always mean danger), then charge in with hurricane and the knockback will simply be added mitigation. They may not thank you for it, but you kept them alive.
Should I use Hurricane on arch villains?:
Because arch villains have very high resists (85% at lvl 50, for other levels look here you will not be able to floor their to hit in the same way that you can with other mobs. However, against an even level Arch Villains Hurricane provides the equivalent of 9% defense for all allies. At +4 (as in the Statesman's Task Force) it is only 4.3%. See the appendix for these calculations. Whether this benefit is worthwhile or not, will depend on the team and the arch villain. If the team seems sturdy enough, then the extra benefit is probably a waste of your endurance. Also, if the people getting hit (tank usually) are soft capped and the enemy has no defense debuffs, then hurricane is wasted. Remember that you do not need to stay in range for the debuff to be effective, you simply need to tag the AV once every 10 seconds. If you need to save the endurance, you can even shut off hurricane during the down times, however, you will need to spend two seconds of battle time activating the power, so it may not be worth your time.
So why does Hurricane get a bad reputation?:
Unless your team has aggro management problems (no tank, or tank without taunt, etc.) then if you are running around with hurricane on all of the time you are probably using it wrong. This power can fling enemies every which way and generally cause complete chaos on the field. Although this may be fun to watch, running through mobs with hurricane on means that melee toons constantly need to chase after their targets and that enemies aren't clumped together for debuffs and area of effect attacks. Because many beginning players won't know how to use hurricane they will simply turn it on and leave it on, wrecking havoc on traditional strategies. It is because of this lack of attention to the success of the team that hurricane often gets a bad rap. Learn how to use hurricane correctly and you will awe your team rather than annoying them.
How should I slot it? (Advanced Version):
Why is slotting for to-hit debuff a good thing?
Without any slots when combined with a defense slotted Steamy Mist, Hurricane will be sufficient to soft cap you against even level minions. If you slot Hurricane for to-hit debuff, then without Steamy Mist (in case you get mezzed or choose not to slot it for defense) you can soft cap against +2 minions; with Steamy Mist, +3 Minions. The calculations can be found in the appendix. Against bosses you can soft cap against +1 bosses without Steamy Mist and +2 bosses with. Also remember, that even though Steamy Mist is helpful, your allies get the benefit of the to-hit debuff even if they are nowhere near you with your Steamy Mist, making being able to hit the soft cap with just hurricane a valuable ability.
Should I slot Deflated Ego: Chance for Recovery Debuff and Dark Watcher's Despair: Chance for Recharge Slow?
No, neither of these are worthwhile. The way these procs would work in Hurricane is that when the power is activated and every 10 seconds after every enemy currently in Hurricane (so not counting those still under the 10 second debuff but outside Hurricane) have a chance to get hit by the debuff. Hurricane can make things tricky as its knockback and repel will push enemies out of Hurricane making them less likely to be in Hurricane when that 10 second mark hits. You can toggle Hurricane on and off to get the activation debuff when enemies are close to you, but neither of these debuffs is worth the hassle. As demonstrated here additional recharge slow is usually worthless on a Storm Defender as enemies will be at the recharge slow cap with Snow Storm and Freezing Rain. Unless you, or your team, tends to use lots of endurance drain, you will not even notice the impact of the recovery debuff. You may have noticed in playing that enemies' blue endurance bar almost never moves because their attacks use relatively little endurance. Thus unless you can completely drain enemies, and keep them from recovering endurance, you will see little impact of the endurance drain. In player versus player content, this IO might be more worthwhile, as players tend to run through their endurance very quickly.
What about a damage proc like Explosive Strike: Chance for Smashing Damage?
This proc will obey the same rules as the debuff procs discussed above. At activation and every 10 seconds thereafter every enemy within Hurricane will have a chance to suffer ~72 damage (@lvl 50, for other levels see here.) Whether this is worthwhile or not, will depend on your playstyle and how much you use Hurricane. Against a single hard target that you keep pinned with hurricane this works out to be just 1.44 damage/sec and probably isn't worthwhile. On the other hand, if you tend to pin large groups of enemies (in a corner or at the end or a hallway) so that the knockback doesn't send them out of Hurricane, the proc could actually add up to substantial damage. However, using it optimally will take practice since on its own Hurricane will tend to knock enemies out of the proc area reducing the damage output.
What about Force Feedback: Chance for +Recharge?
Again this will depend on your play style. When it is activated and then every 10 seconds thereafter for every enemy in Hurricane there is a 10% chance you will receive a +100 recharge boost for 5 seconds. This means that the more enemies in hurricane, the more likely the proc will fire: if there are 10 enemies there is a 65% chance the proc will fire (1-.9^10). Note that the proc does not stack, so even if the proc fires on two enemies you will only see a 100% boost. If there are no enemies in Hurricane during one of the checks it will not fire. So you can stand around with hurricane on all day in Wentworth's Fine Consignments and you will never see the proc fire. Furthermore any Force Feedback procs that fire while the proc is active are suppressed and ignored. Thus if you have another power with Force Feedback in it, it will not proc if a recharge buff from the Force Feedback proc in hurricane is currently active on you.
Which IO sets should I slot in Hurricane?
Since Hurricane is so endurance heavy, I like slotting it with the Hamidon enhancement Enzyme exposure which enhances both endurance and to-hit debuff, as three slots will get you to the enhancement diversification cap for both attributes.
However, slotting Dark Watcher's Despair is a nice alternative as you can get a 5% recharge bonus for just 4 slots where recharge bonuses usually require 5 slots. Although Discouraging Words has a defense bonus, it does not provide any endurance modification and caps out at level 20 so probably is not the best investment unless you are desperate for that bonus. Hurricane benefits so much more from to-hit debuff slotting that unless you had very specific build requirements, I would not even consider the knockback sets. -
Well so much for having this guide done before Going Rogue came out. With luck Thunder Clap will prove to be much faster. If you're interested in seeing other sections of the guide:
Gale
O2 Boost
Snow Storm
Steamy Mist
Freezing Rain
Thunder Clap
Tornado
and please feel free to continue providing feedback on these sections as well.
Now the blurb about the guide:
The original target of the guide (over a year ago) was for relatively experienced players, but those that didn't have a firm grasp of underlying game mechanics. The goal of this guide was also to be one stop shopping for any questions you might have about Storm Summoning so it is quite comprehensive (I hope). Based on feedback I have modified the structure of the guide to attempt to make it more accessible to new players, although it now has a strange combination of treating you like you know a lot and like you know nothing.
Although the guide is intended to be comprehensive, I would not call it objective and is certainly subject to my biases, although I attempt to present contrasting view points as well.
All feedback is welcome, although I wouldn't worry too much about grammar at this stage as I have not done a thorough proofreading seeing as the guide is likely to change. I am particularly interested in any questions you have about Hurricane that you don't see answered, or information that you believe I have wrong or that I have omitted.
Ultimately I will take all feedback into account in the final version of the guide although for simplicity sake I will not be updating the main post to reflect feedback except to correct factual errors.
And I believe the guide is now up with all links active. If you notice any links that are broken or links that are missing, please let me know. -
Quote:Jak, I apologize that you did not receive the type of assistance that you desired. My response to you was not intended to be judgmental (as a rule I do not post builds). I was simply trying to provide feedback to aid you in getting the type of assistance that you desire in the future. The link that I provided in my earlier post (here)was from my searching for storm/ele threads and included several Storm/Ele builds that were posted in March of this year (so no real changes since then) and also demonstrated the type of information that would have been useful for people to provide builds.Draggynn, under time pressure I did ask for some outright builds. I will point out that the Storm/x guides are all very out of date or the link is broken. I also invite you to search Storm/elec or various permutations thereof. With only my own limited understanding of defenders in general (just got my 9 month badge - have just the one mid level defender) I asked for more substantive help.
Yes, saying you want an offender provides some more guidance, but all Storm Defenders are basically offenders. Information that would have been useful (and yes, it's hard to know that this is information that is needed before hand):
solo/group/pvp play? (roleplaying generally means group, but isn't entirely clear)
Leveling build or Level 50 build (how well does the build need to exemp?)? (your final post makes it sound like you're still leveling him up, which requires very different advice than tweaking a lvl 50)
What price range were you looking for? (Break the bank with PvP IOs, Just cheap IOs, or SOs)
You'll notice that PsyonicBlast included all of this information and was much more successful in getting responses.
Also, there's no reason to get horribly upset about a lost respec. You didn't really lose a freespec, you just failed to gain another one. Were you really planning on respeccing him twice with the freespecs in short succession, anyway? If I were in your position I would provide more information and hopefully someone will post a build that more closely resembles what you are looking for and then you can use the freespec that you still have to change to the build that you most admire. Yes, there's no safety net of another freespec, but their given out with some frequency, and you'll have vet specs soon. -
I think in general you'll find that people are more inclined to answer questions and critique builds than to provide a build outright when someone says, "show me a build!" In part I think this is because there are so many different approaches that can be taken that without knowing your play style it's hard to know what to emphasize. When you post a build we're able to see based on which powers you pick and how heavily you slot certain powers where your interest lies: Oh Gale, Hurricane, and LS all slotted for Knockback, well we'll try to keep the emphasis on knockback since you seem to like it, and here's some advice on how to use knockback. Oh, All of your attacks are slotted for endurance drain, well it may not be worthwhile except with short circuit, but here is some advice on using end drain better.
You get the idea. Just saying, "I need a new build" doesn't give us a whole lot to work with and asks us to do a lot of work. If all you want is some Storm/Electric builds you can find them with a little bit of searching as in this thread. Without additional information there is no reason to post anything except for builds which are already out there. -
There may not be any defender Traps Guides since it's a relatively new primary for defenders, but there are certainly Corruptor Traps Guides which would be similar.
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Quote:Sorry Crescent, don't mean to derail your thread, but this is the correct wiki. Both wiki.cohtiitan.com and paragonwiki.com point to the same pages. The wrong wiki is the one at wikia.this is the "wrong wiki" but it has a good writeup
http://wiki.cohtitan.com/wiki/Screenshots
Back on topic, I look forward to watching the progression of your sketches, you're off to a fine start. -
Quote:I believe that Frosticus has proved to everyone's satisfaction now that PA requires a 60 second recharge to be perma. (with unavoidable downtime between the despawn and resummon)I've been toying around with the idea of making my Illu/Therm's build even more recharge intensive in order to get PA perma. I've got PA down to 61.1 seconds recharge, but I've heard conflicting information about whether PA needs to be at 63 or 60 seconds recharge to be perma, so I'm not sure if it's enough.
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I love hasten on Storm to get more Freezing Rain and Lightning Storm, but I could see end being less troublesome without that problem.
Quote:Soloing, I'm strongly considering adding Stamina, Power Sink, or both, to a second solo build, because the constant Resting sucks. -
Quote:An aside, but the EndMod Set IOs (Performance Shifter and the other one) really seem to have been designed with Short Circuit, Power Sink, Drain Psyche, and/or Consume in mind, not Stamina. Stamina only benefits from the EndMod part of those IOs, not from Recharge or Accuracy or any other aspect (except the Proc).Quote:Similarly, Stamina doesn't use Accuracy, Recharge, or EndReduction. I understand you're doing that for the global 2.5% Recovery and 2.5% Damage, but you could simply three-slot Stamina and free up three slots to put in other powers, possibly netting yourself much, much more effect. Personally, I'd just do Performance Shifter-EndMod, Efficacy Adaptor-EndMod and one from either of those sets (or even just go common IOs). Maybe add Performance Shifter-Chance for Endurance (judgment call there).
However, if you are going to 4 slot stamina, then you are actually better off slotting 4 Performance Shifters (@lvl 50, I'd need to redo the calculations for a lower level IO to be sure): 1 straight end mod, the proc, and 2 end mod/X. The +recovery bonus actually makes it better than slotting straight endurance modification IOs even though they are less potent due to being dual IOs. Granted, it is only a MINOR improvement, but in addition to the fraction more recovery, you also net a health bonus.