TygerDarkstorm

I kept seeing the Thermal AoE heal go off and at first thought maybe Midnyte had it on her Sent. Then I realized it wasn't her and was like, wait, we have a Thermal but no Thermal shields? xD Though interestingly, I recall you saying you had both heals on your build, which seemed an odd choice for a solo build since one of them is a single target ally only heal. I mean, I suppose the shields could be considered skippable, but I'd only imagine that's at higher level play, though folks typically can't/don't cap resistance. The clear mind like power is considered skippable by most though if you want to free up that power pick for something else. Edit: Also, the ITF is my favorite TF, super bummed to have to miss next week. Love the theme as well. Good luck y'all!

LIke Wavicle said, you aren't getting the most benefit from Storm Cell and Cat 5 if you also aren't using your storm attacks; your attacks are what make them proc and do their thing to the full extent.

It has already been stated that Storm Cell moving was added for flavor and not as a core part of the mechanic. Want it to move faster? Slap recharge in it and cast it off CD on the next group.

Storm/Storm is just one of those "too obvious" pairings for me, and genuinely doesn't interest me, personally, lol. From my time spent in beta I am looking to roll: Storm/Dark Corruptor - finally found a combo that fits my forum namesake in a way I like, and these two powersets have good synergy. And you don't have to wait until late game for it to start feeling good. Storm/TA Blaster and/or Storm/Fire Blaster - TA for semi-obvious reasons; it keeps a more ranged playstyle and glue arrow will help keep things in Cell/Cat 5 while oil slick arrow provides extra AoE damage. /Fire started as something of a joke from the gold standard discord, but /Fire brings a lot of extra AoE (some of which is passive) that Storm Blast is lacking when Cell/Cat 5 might not be down/available. /Fire is less safe and quite squishy, but the potential seems interesting. Storm/Elec Sentinel - I see this is becoming quite the popular combo, lol! This pairing is all about thematics for me and my brief testing of it seemed like it should play nice as well. I can't decide if I'll make a defender, if I do, it will be team oriented as I'm currently trying to solo a defender in beta and it's miserable since you don't get Storm Cell until level 10. Plus, since Storm's gimmick is effects that ramp up, it really gives more benefit to corruptors since that's more of their style with Scourge.

So... I'm fairly certain that a lot of what you're complaining about is actually Symphony WAI. I may be wrong on some of the powers, but the confuse and pet were discussed *ad nauseam* during the last beta. The pet has no powers of its own--it is designed to copy you/your powers; you cast, it casts. If you need a refresher, check out the Symphony thread from the Page 5 beta. Symphony doesn't play like other control sets, and that's a good thing! It's a fun powerset where you actually want to slot most of its powers for damage rather than control (especially the stun one, it hits like a freight train for a control power). Symphony is also a set that plays better on controllers than doms due to the nature of the set.

HIghlighting the bolded part because that is *exactly* how the movement portion of Storm Cell is supposed to be seen. It is not intended to be a core part of the power's intended use and was added for flavor.

A what now? 😛

Yeah, as much as I love Beasts, with the new MM changes, they've gotten left behind, sadly. I think your Tier list seems pretty accurate @Yaliw

Thank you, I totally forgot to mention...

Wow, what a whammy of an episode!

Even while leveling you should be able to have Cell up every fight (thinking of soloing/slower moving teams here, not fast-placed gameplay) if you're willing to invest a little recharge into it.

I see where the issue between us players is coming from, at least from my end, it's the use of the wording. Hopefully I can a little better explain what I mean. I honestly hate having to just say "trust me bro" when it comes to Storm Cell just playing way worse with a shorter duration and recharge... Like, it barely lasted through one spawn worse. As to its current iteration, when I say it can easily be made perma (while leveling no less), I say that because it means that you can readily cast it before its duration has even fully expired to place it where you want to be for the next group, should you choose to go that route. Because yes, the movement thing, while neat in practice, can be kinda irksome while in practice; it doesn't always go fast enough, and sometimes it doesn't engage with the mobs when you do, making starting a second group a bit difficult. So to somewhat solve this because the devs told us they would not make it function more like Faraday Cage, you can perma the recharge and always have it ready to go. Storm Blast is not meant to be a speedrunning powerset, and I think a lot of people are getting hung up on that idea. If you're on a team moving that fast, skip using it, or bring a different character. And I think it should be okay that we have a powerset that isn't catered to speedrunning. This powerset levels rather nicely, it's great for more prolonged fights, will be super awesome in the MSR bowl. Much like any other powerset, you have to know which tool to use at which time.

So, since I hadn't played Storm in a while, I rolled a Storm/Fire blast character on Brainstorm. I am not, personally, having issues with Storm Cell and location. It follows me, makes it through 2 spawns like always, and it seems to want to stay near me or the mob(s) I'm targeting. I have not yet had it try to go after random runners or anything. It's a little slow to engage the second group with, but otherwise I don't really have any complaints in this area. It seems to do what it's supposed to and at level 20, I have it perma with 2 recharge SO's. Edit: So yeah, if anything, being able to nudge it up in front of me when I'm ready to engage the next group while it's still active would be nice.

Believe me, I feel you, lol. I don't quite understand why Storm Cell isn't more like Faraday Cage when you're pretty much required to have Cell up to not feel like the set is poodoo. I have enjoyed the hours spent playing it enough that I am willing to work with whatever the devs do decide to do. I just wanted people to know that many of us get your frustration and advocated for it to be more permanent, and are offering ways to make it work within the realm of what we've been given.

Fair enough; which is why I wanted it to be like Faraday Cage. I'm not exactly sure the reasoning behind that aspect of it. The following you mechanic was added for flavor as opposed to being like a feature. Something like that, idk, it was weird. But yeah, it almost needs to be like an actual rain patch that doesn't move, or let us move it about a la Cage. But again, we tried asking for these types of changes. Not sure they're gonna change it now. I don't recall having too many issues with it last with me for two spawns, and it generally seemed to want to stay around the target I was attacking.

It's not exactly unknown anymore that there's a closed beta process that happens before things go to Brainstorm... One of the devs has even said that once things hit Brainstorm, they're more looking for bugs and such and that drastic changes are not as likely to happen at that point. And again, Storm Cell is easily made permanent, so even if people complain, I imagine that that is what the response will be.

You do realize I was specifically talking of the closed beta testing that happened before here, yes? Several of us fought for all the same reasons people here have mentioned about Storm Cell. One of the devs working the powerset told us how they want the power to be, and basically, this was it. To get the shorter recharge, it had a much shorter duration (that was how they wanted to compensate for it), and it sucked, utterly. And the point still stands that even in its current form, Storm Cell is made perma rather easily, even while leveling. It's not ideal, but we're not likely to see much, if any changes, with Cell given that.

Honestly, making it like Faraday Cage was the solution I thought made the most sense considering how awful Storm Blast plays when Storm Cell is not up and Cell is like *the* set defining power.

Every Saturday morning/afternoon:

Essentially because in CB we were told that shortening the recharge means shortening the duration of it as well. And we tried that version and it was a lot worse than the current implementation. Slot recharge in it and you can have it perma even while leveling. Edit: And all of our other suggestions (many of which have been mentioned in this thread by open beta testers) were shot down as well. Devs said this is how they want it, and this iteration of cell offered the best bang for the buck, so to speak.

If you read through the following posts, my mistake had already been caught and corrected, hence why the post you quoted was edited. Edit: Also, I apologize. I see the even bigger mistake I made in thinking that even direct strike and chain lightning work like all other electric-like attacks in the game. I see now what you're saying; they don't say they specifically give you end in return for their sapping. Thank you for the correction!

Yep, perma out of the box won't be happening. And like I said, it being on a shorter duration/recharge was actually worse in play. I agree its design as is, is a bit odd, but yeah, it's current implementation works just fine (I still think it working like Faraday Cage would have been cool since it's the cornerstone of the set and Storm Blast plays like poo without Storm Cell up, but you take what you can get).

I get what you, and folks like you are saying about the recharge/duration, but trust me, it's better like this. If they lower the recharge, they will lower the duration to compensate, and frankly, when we tried it that way, it sucked waaaay more. We tried advocating for it to be more like Faraday Cage or have some more flexibility since it is the cornerstone of the set, but no dice. So yeah, if you want it to be perma, you're probably going to need to commit to Recharge SO's/IO's in it; which I didn't find bad in the grand scheme of leveling. Having storm cell active more often, imo, grants overall better DPS than running without it active, even if you lose a slot or two in it in the process.

We're losing aim no matter what and beanbag will be staying, but even if we did lose beanbag, I'm finding it hard to see how you're "giving up so much." People bummed about Ignite I understand, but Beanbag is like the least taken power in AR and hard to justify since it doesn't work within AR's existing toolkit or do damage. Not to mention, as Galaxy Brain said, so many more buffs were given to AR to at least put it mid-tier instead of dead last. Go play with it on Brainstorm, AR feels way better now, even if you don't take Aim.

I edited my post to say a few instead of many since I derped and went off of enhancement sets allowed.