DrunkFlux

That explains why you were defending it in that way, where-as I use nukes to clear trash mobs, I don't actually expect top dps against avs on ranged toons, I have stalkers and scrappers for that. I even in my builds try to include as much cooldown as I can so i can have them up for as many fresh mobs as I can find. My water/time blaster in fact is saturated enough with CR that hastens effect was diluted and so I skipped hasten.

Which is the problem, tier 9s are supposed to be something you WANT to use every chance you get on fresh mobs, not save it for an AV as nukes are not really meant to be AV killers. Its little more than a buff for other powers effectively rather than an actual attack. If I wanted to make an AV killer i'd make a scrapper or stalker. At least cat 5 doesn't remove all of your endurance on using it like t9s in the old days did. And the fact that it and storm cell have the main gimmicks of the powerset within them and fights don't last long enough for them to really do much. Storms gimmicks just to unreliable.

Correction on above post: About 90% of cat 5s damage doesn't even apply if fight is over in 5-6 seconds. And storm cell....hardly relevant at all either 😞 after I looked over the mechanics and did the math in that one post.

So your just going to keep this loop going on ignoring practicality even when you agree with us that the damage is done far to slowly so its not even a factor more or less, I gotcha. I love that you use this to beat around the bush that its just not effective enough for 90% of its effect to be in play which is what I was in fact saying, not that it was completely useless. You have zero context; enemies are dead within 5-6 seconds so the power is there with nothing left to damage for about 80% of its remaining duration. THAT IS WHAT I AM GETTING AT. The arguement I make is that it just as well have not been used as it's just NOT doing enough damage to have really cleaned anything that much faster to begin with, once you account for an entire team of players pounding on some mobs. It's the practicality law in effect: You could just as well have used other powers and ignored category 5, as you would have gotten better results. It's just THAT weak *facepalms*. Your only nitpicking to try and claim an arguement victory at this point when you've been focusing on the wrong things in this conversation entirely. After my math category fives only damage done just as well have been the proc effect it has off of other storm powers, unless a fight lasts longer than 5 seconds its dps doesn't even get to max. It's damage window should be cut down to about 10-15 seconds(same as blizzard) and actually brought in line WITH blizzard. And it should be more upfront like blizzard. The extra damage procs from other powers would be a fine bonus to have in it.

Thats what I am talking about and have been trying to tell you in "Making it matter": the Damage over time is far to long. Enemies die before it gets to most of its damage.

Well actually i'm just busting your previous "Category 5 applies its damage faster than eight of the other Blaster primaries' T9s." I'm factoring in nuke chaining to destroy it once and for all. Read the post above and the one after. Storm blast is left in the dust and even being lapped on the racing track by average powersets.

In fact corrected damage your doing, oh god this is even more laughable: 10. Ten damage. To be exact, 2.21 damage/second for the first five seconds. So at most, 18.17 damage -.-. So I have to remove......from the original math....omg....200 damage over the five seconds as 58 - 18 = 40 so I have to cut you damage over the 5 by 200. 559/5 = 112 rounded. *facepalms at self* I'm...not even going to run exact numbers here. Now storm looks like toothpicks. Edit: Actually more math but, its still pathetic: so its only 8.22 buffed max per second so I have to cut 50 off of that DPS. I have to remove 250 now(50 damage more lost on recalculation). So now 509/5 = 102 damage rounded in nuke chain per second.

Yes but no where near enough to matter which is the point, in practicality its just outright underperforming. Even the math I just made painstakingly shows that, and again, thats theory talk where-as me and wravis have been telling you that the set isn't even pulling anything off. In fact I even made a mistake here, as category 5 needs a second to start acting. And doesn't even get its full dps for five seconds, ooops :D. So I was generous and STILL the nuke chain for storm blast loses badly.

In short, sorry buddy, even the math in THEORY leaves you in the dust on this and thats just THEORY TALK, practicality often that doesn't even happen at times. Enemies get scattered or someone else well, nukes at the same time ect. Bottom line though, your AoE nuke power is pathetic. I hate running numbers like I did above but your litterally not even throwing the theory book at us very well here. I took even lower end AoE nuke chains and over 5 seconds found your potential damage to be laughable. Now, Solo is a different matter, AoE burst isn't as valuable, I'm focused however on what happens during team play. And thats what the complaint about storm blast is; it's terrible at team play once you break down the problems of Storm Cell and Category 5.

I'm losing brain cells reading this, are you kidding me? Are you being exceedingly literal or something? Even then your doing a horrible job at it because now your logic isnt even there, I don't know how you seriously think category 5 is applying its damage faster, its NOT. A power that does 500 damage, or maybe even 1000 damage after buffed up, at its activation time or halfway through often its all up front. It doesn't need thirty seconds to apply that. Ok lets talk nuke chain. And what often happens, when someone is serious about destroying enemies. We'll assume five seconds and ONLY five second given, with a tiny bit of leeway, final power can go past, but damage has to be inflicted in that. BU+Aim allowed BEFORE fighting. We'll assume we are both giving our best, who will beat who. We'll assume your damage is enhanced to 100% and your using gaussian and on a blaster, with Build up from Energy manip as thats standard baseline. Storms intensify has a 31.25% damage buff and we slot gaussian in there for another 40% damage buff for half the duration of the main buffs. In damage categorization your looking at a damage multiplier of 3.7125 in total of the baseline damage. Enhanced the damage 'stated' by category five is 316, enhanced it'll be around 632, but if we divide that by 30 on average your only looking at TWENTY EFFECTIVE DAMAGE PER SECOND. Now, you could buff that up but the AIM power is largely weak at about 31.25% and the BU proc (which is 40% and so we have to use a real build up(100%) which gives us a damage boost of 171.25% on top of enhanced damage (assuming 100% of course for simplicity) for a total damage multiplier of 3.7125. the max theoretical is 1, 173.15 BUT we have another problem. Thats only the DoT and we have to divide that down sharply by 30 seconds to average, only 58 damage/second. If they only last a few seconds say, 5 seconds your only getting off 290.94 damage inflicted, DPS...well...stated...:/. Onto the other feature. You HAVE to use the other powers to proc the lightning blast, and odds are very very good that you'll get maaybe 1-2 attacks off after cat 5 is active, maybe 3 at the most, for about 68*3 BUT BUT BUT we hae to REMOVE 1 of those 3 so it'll only be 68*2. And that does NOT benefit from enhancement or buffs. So its unchanged. I'll let you add chain lightning for 283(76.45*3.7125) to up to 16, BUT the proc from lightning storm only hits up to 5. And now we are not even looking at category five but the followups in the nuke chain. Odds are yuou may be doing a lot of damage per second in the AoE, BUT THIS IS BECAUSE YOUR FOLLOWING UP WITH OTHER ATTACKS LIKE ANYONE WOULD WITH ANY POWERSET. So we have a laughable damage situation here. 290.94 + 283 = 573.94, and one power left. This is just cat 5 but what about what the original OP talked about? Well at least this one gets damage buffs but theres a problem, pseudopets lose the damage boost after a short period, so the BU combo will only last 10 seconds, and halfway through that your losing the gaussian proc. But you have time, compared to me as i'll only get 2 attacks, but 2 is all I need and I'll have already out-done you. At most on one enemy it will only hit 75.07*3.7125 = 278.7 'once'. If your lucky. Or it'll dilute to 139.36 on 2 or even less down to 69.68 damage to 4 targets. Thats if you get lucky, you have to remember that your activating storm cell while the BU is active so now your losing a LOT of activation time of that 5 second buff so you'll lose .4 in that calculation. So we cannot even factor Storm cell, its not worthwhile or even worthy of a nuke chain *facepalms, smacks head*. You COULD follow up but it's not going to do anything to add. So your going to have to use jet stream to finish the chain for optimal results. In this case, 50.05*3.7125 = 185.81 vs 10 targets. 573.94 + 185.81 = 759.75 over 3 attacks in the chain. If your luck you could add 69.68 but thats 4 targets, see below for Total damage practical in 5 seconds: 759.75 / 151.95 Also with 3 powers(this'll become relevant see below) But your effectively getting, either way, all your damage from your other attacks, your using them to proc the extras that, 31.28+93.84+(11*10.67) = 242.49 * 3.7125 = 900.24 so ok i'm doing less BUUUUUT I do about half that instantly AAAND the remaining half is done over only FIVE seconds and up to SIXTEEN TARGETS. AND I CAN ALWAYS FOLLOWUP WITH STEAM SPRAY AND STILL PROBABLY HAVE THE BU PROC. 449.21 damage done on followup on up to 10 targets. And the followup is applying damage during that 5 seconds, so my AoE BURST is going to be over that five seconds to 10 targets 1,349.45 damage with another 6 experiencing 900.24 damage. 900/5 = 180 damage done per second from just geysar. I've beaten you with just 'one' power. If I go with both stacked... 1349..45/5 = 269.89 DPS to group. I didn't just beat you, I 'completely' floored you. HARD. A fire blaster will leave even me in the dust in 3 seconds: Aim is more powerful by about twice the raw damage buff, 62.5 I add the damage up with gaus to 102.5+BU100 + Enhanced 100+base for total multiplier of 4.025! Base INFERNO damage is 410.94 at 50! I don't even have a chance: 410.94*4.025 = 1654.0335! Divide by 3...know I won't even do that here. Your, not even CLOSE. Other Tier 9s do 250 base and same aim power, so 250.25*4.025 = 1007. Still beating both of us with 3 seconds, and they still have a normal AoE to throw in there, many do around 56 damage, and thats the lowest so lets try that, but many do more; 56.21 * 4.025 =226 1226 / 5 = 245.2/second. Still flooring you.

Wravis 100% gets it. Rudra its very very clear you haven't really used storm blast or never really pay attention to what really happens.

I stand by that the damage is still done fully when the animation time ends, where-as category 5 and storm cell need far far more tiem than you'd think due to the mechanics by nature. Every single group I played so far nothing was alive long enough for storm cell or category 5 to matter. Whereas I never had that problem on any other set in the game, the closest being seismic even then I found ways around it.

In fact I don't think you even know what your talking about in the rule of practicality, at all. You focus only on the end result of the power in THEORY but not in ACTUAL PRACTICE. 90% of the fights I see in teams last about 3-8 seconds on lower difficulties. Even at +4 if its an easier group like council a few more seconds but all the minions and lts are dead. If Theres an incarnate or two judgements usually wipe out the minions/lts almost immedietly. Normally, I try to keep my t9s back until i'm sure I'll get them off, so it ends up cycling the t9s/judgements. Thats standard. Storm cell and Category 5 just need to much time to be relevent, they are way to slow. They lack speed, not movement, i'm talking they need a lot of time to really come into effect. The fact is they are only good in AV fights or when theres a lot of elite bosses around. Storm cell isn't the end of the world but category 5 is to me just way overly situational. But its the same problem for both; there effects just way to often do not come into play due to the sheer amount of time needed for them to matter.

You focused entirely on the wrong thing in that comparison chart.

Cat 5 I brought up and derailed a little as it has the same problems as Storm cell. Actually worst, since it doesn't even move. Both powers need a LOT of time to matter. I'm talking 10-20 seconds+. Inferno, at that 3 seconds hits for its FULL damage. Meteor once landed hits for FULL damage. Even Rain of arrows hits for full damage much, much, MUCH faster than either storm cell or Category 5. Some sets have even higher initiative: Water Geyser not only applies full damage but is targetted AoE so easy as pie to fire off. Electrical blasts Tier 9 Also hits for full as does Beam rifle and both are targetted AoE. Non tier 9s, standard powers that are slow but I still use them: Fire breath needs about 3 seconds, but unless enemy dies right away, it'll usually get its damage in. Many melee attacks at high tier have long activations but still get full effect. Also them failing doesnt egregiously effect your other powers. In fact, every powerset when you activate a power, unless you fired it when everything already was dead practically your getting the full effect out of them. Both Storm Cell and Category five need at least 10 or so seconds to be useful. And even then, may not be useful if RNG decides not to trigger the lightning strikes. THAT is the problem here as why the OP wanted the activation time to be lowered. You not only have the activation time of storm cell and category five but ALSO THE ACTIVATION TIME OF EVERY SINGLE ATTACK YOU USE DURING THAT. AND EVEN THEN IT DOES NOT ALWAYS APPLY! It's unreliable, horribly unreliable and that was a complaint in the test forums. So you've got a powerset that has a finicky mechanic at best. It has almost no initiative. It's effectively a set thats only useful vs AV's and really, really tough mobs that don't die right away. Yet every other set I play also is useful vs really, really tough mobs.

And an FYI: I have a lot of fun with most every one of the other power sets and enjoy them a LOT, its more than the numbers, in fact if I only cared about damage sure I'd just pick fire blast and call it a day, but in fact I actually value UTILITY in my builds(including blasters), but I don't even see that with storm blast. The effects are awesome to, I also enjoyed seismic a ton because it had utility and I was still able to land the meteors in time with how I adjusted my playstyle to ensure meteor could land on the mobs before everyone else melted them. Cat 5 cannot even do that.

Well I dunno, I just don't seem to feel like storm blast is a useful powerset, in fact I feel it kind of sucks and if the idea of "fun over performance" well, I'm just gonna stick with ahem; Fire blast Ice blast Water Blast Beam Rifle The new Assault Rifle Energy Blast Archery Dark Blast Dual Pistols Sonic Blast Aka, every other set in the game where if I fire the tier 9, unless everything had died before it lands its because I messed up, not because someone else quickly joined in and fired off there judgement or own T9 that isn't Category 5. No other set has this problem. Category 5 sucks and storm cell just seems unreliable and to slow for the meta, the powerset as a whole suffers tremendously for it.

Actually i'm not arguing about "Uber maximum damage at all times" but actually the power getting to apply and be a factor 'at all', theres a huge difference. A energy torrent for example if it fires off and lands, even if the mobs are killed before anything else is used, is still a power that got to be a factor in that fight. Is freezing rain useful if the mobs die so fast it doesn't land? Nope, even fulcrum shift can become irrelevent if the mobs die way, way to fast for it to apply. But thats a case of speed to the mob and it's still able to get a sizable damage buff on a few enemies. Problem is, Cat 5 doesn't matter in most fights since well your likely to get 1-2 powers off after using it even if you opened up with it but ignored storm cell, or vice versa with storm cell. Only if your way ahead of the team does it matter. Thats what I am talking about. It becomes a wasted power use when you fire it at anything anyone else is already engaging and they are powerful enough. The mobs have to live long enough for it to work at all. Even if it did even so much as say, 100 damage upfront it'd be 100 times more useful than it is now, because then at LEAST you get to see 'that' damage inflicted.

2.03 seconds I'd seen entire mobs die in that time. In fact, i see it all the time. Thats why me and Axer are bringing it up. It only matters when a majority of mobs are very very tough, but a lot of the games content the mobs aren't. If your soloing the mobs on 8x and able to handle fine, more power to you it'll work fine. But your practically forced to do that to see the powers actually come into play, its either that or AV's which storm blast can definently do well against. It's just down to the law of practicality :/. It's not the most impractical thing i've seen, and honestly we are trying to give constructive criticism and your basically stating it's perfectly fine, when multiple times in the forums they brought up these potential issues, and now its seen in play.

I'd add though, I think storm blast screams to be used on a corruptor and I think it can be crazy with any secondary. Its attacks seem to hit hard even with the lower damage modifier without scourge and just hit like a truck with scourge. Since corrs/defenders aren't known for being super devastating with most T9s as it is, this works out for them.

And if the player is a blaster? Then what? As for the star eating everything on the map, well thats why I spear-head, but thats actually so mobs are dealt with faster and the map is cleared faster overall. Honestly I don't do that except on my main blaster who is made to be a hyper-aggressive build, which I'm building my own storm/time manip for a similar play style. Again I'd brought up it has tremendous staying power, so it's effectively an Archvillain killer, it does seem less valuable on anything without AV's though, or without lots of high health enemies. I wonder if someone could make a fire farmer with storm blast :D.

I think storms biggest problem is while it has high over time and sustained damage but it's DPA INITIATIVE is very, very bad. In fact, it's the worst in the game I've ever seen, a complete opposite of my usual playstyle of "Full spearhead, hit hard, fast and first". And I favor reliability, all of my builds are made with that in mind, otherwise I feel kinda useless. Simply, many mobs will be dead before you land anything due to all that time in trying to open up. Solo though, I decided while teaming just now to rush a team by myself after quaffing a purple and having farsight active and times juncture active. I was able to slaughter it no problem as the AoE sustain and consistency in hitting hard AND hitting more than one enemy at a time at all times was very effective. It just seems to as a set over-focus on that mechanic.

He's 100% accurate on this though, many teams kill mobs very fast, often so much so that in the time it takes for you to get all your stuff in, the mob is already dead. I'd argue storm blast is a phenomenal solo set that doesn't work well in high damage teams, as by itself it can do a lot of AoE once everything gets moving, but the problem is everything HAS to get moving and rev up. The revup factor is very very bad for doing burst AoE which is more important in teams as you just don't get to do anything otherwise. Storm cell should also move quicker once its summoned, much quicker. It should fly and should even teleport to whatever your attacking. Or I'd have asked to make it an AoE toggle. Again, it produces no agro. But it's necessary for all the powers to work. Everything in CoH is activation time economy, and Storm blasts biggest problem so far is just that, so it's actually, while a fun set numbers wise, they rarely are relevant in teamplay. It does seem to be an exceptional solo set though, as then once its going the mobs die very quickly, quicker than average in fact as the high AoE damage just keeps going. I cannot help but feel it wasn't tested long enough for feedback to matter, it was pushed out to early. Activation time and burst is 'everything' for AoE power in the current meta of the game. Thats why fire, ice and water blast are so powerful, they need no setup time to inflict the maximum damage, or can prep 'before' engaging.

Title says it all, I sent a memory dump+crash report with homecoming client, but picking EMP arrow during the power customization crashes the game.

Iwill have to try the new AR since.... it be https://tenor.com/byN8A.gif