Borias

I think a nice QoL change would be to unlock prerequisites for pool powers, ie eliminating the need to take boxing or kick before getting tough & weave. Making lightning storm a location based power so it can be placed high on walls and ceilings to reduce visual noise. Something akin to spectral terror. symphony control’s pet, reverberant needs something, and it’s faster travel along with an out of combat stealth so you can place it at enemy groups to be most effective with its cones. Or make it invincible like a phantasm decoy. Or give it much longer range on its powers. Defender’s inherit needs a once over. A hot take would to give defenders a vigilance bar like sentinels that fills up the more blasting you do, passively increasing the group’s recharge rate (maybe maxed bar equals 20%) and once activated do pbaoe debuff to -dmg, -res, and -to hit to enemies.

I got hooked on storm blast after a team mate showed me how synergistic it was to play with ice manipulation. I really enjoy the playstyle of just dropping storm cell and firing into it as it mows down mobs. The storm cell moves forward applying debuffs to everything in front of me as the vacuum of destruction continues. I could reliably protect the back line, cleaning up any straggling critters. Catch up to the front and drop a new one along with category five and intensify. Sidenote : Wasp from Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3 throws out a tornado and then fires her sting blast to ricochet in all directions for her max dps potential, which is pretty fun and that mechanic really felt like it transferred over to storm blast well. I never had issues with fast moving teams on my built up storm blaster, but the recharge reduction is nice, but it could have even reduced by half and felt meaningful. I don’t care for the changes to storm cell itself. The immobilization feels like a nerf & safety issue to my playstyle. I think if we have to keep it immobile it needs an activated trawl when storm blast powers are used, a barrier to prevent escape, or let it teleport to your target when cloud burst is pushed. Also, the visuals and sound of placing it on beta right now are weird, and I think this is getting fixed, but the lightning shooting down as soon as it lands would make it seem to telegraph that the enemy group is being agro’d, when nothing is actually happening. It would be like if tide pool started shooting up geysers once placed for no reason. The increased radius on category five will be an okay adjustment to me since I will put it between two groups and engage the entire room. since I play most content, I’m happy that category five is a persistent source of damage that mobs can be pulled into. I feel like it retains value through most content that involves resurrecting enemy groups and groups of Elite Bosses. It would be better if it had a trawl to it as well, not gunna lie.

I tend to rotate them on most blasters, using the first aim with build up proc to do a nuke and then firing off the second one 10-15 seconds later with a regular attack chain. I do have a marine/water defender that uses both before unloading geyser. That’s more about the lengthy debuff setup it takes to optimize the damage.

Beast Mastery / Marine Affinity would be my vote for snappy melee gameplay. It felt safe and the pet AI really matched the flow. It’s my only mastermind I’ve felt comfortable with leaving pets on aggressive most of the time. The beasts movement speed is really a boon to the synergy. Whitecap in after tide pool and let the pets do their thing unless there is a priority target. Take a few steps back to position for your cone attack and watch the pets shred. Marine’s attack buffs and your attacks that stack more attack buffs on your pets become a force to be reckoned with.

I made one of these defenders before electric blast got buffed, I’ve recently came back to her and I’m having a much more enjoyable time since her respec. She is L45 now and previously I took all the EA powers and none of the blasting. Had fighting and leadership. it was okay, keeping everyone’s blue bars filled up. I’ve had some more experience since then and now with her respec I took out amp up and the fighting pool for more blast powers. I found I didn’t need the defensives…. I use charge up and run in with cage, then short circuit, ball lightning, defibrillate, and thunderous blast. Everything is sapped and my sentinels throws some sparks. After that is done I’ll throw buffs and be ready for the next group of mobs. it’s much more engaging now and I feel very safe without the additional toggles.

Yeah I'd love to see it do -regen! that would def help it stay viable at end game content. I think it would also make sense to add -tohit / -acc because it practically makes it harder to see the groups of mobs in tight quarters, only makes sense for them to have a harder time seeing us too! I really like snow storm, it's not until I'm on other toons to understand how much I miss it while I'm trying to chase down mobs on my melee character because I never realized how much mobs run away from a fight, lol.

I love all this Storm Summing talk! I was just in a group doing Mother Mayhem when we got proximity agro from all the mobs up on the nearby ledge. We had two tankers in the group, but no one was really doing anything but beating on the AV, so after a few moments of watching the mobs just stand up there on their high ground aiming their rifles at us, I decided to do what us Stormies do best! I threw out tentacles and start herding them all down to the kill zone. With about 20 seconds of work, the whole area was cleared and I was able to resume my deeps on the AV. Victory was had with fun for everyone!

Lots of good info here. I’d like to add my two cents. I played a Storm / Electric on live until I7, now I play a Storm / Dark. I find that the tentacles and self heal really shore up the Storm summoning set. My playstyle is a heavy debuffing, soft controling, moderate damage dealing spot healer. I really enjoy having such an active role in groups, I’m always busy and setting up the atmosphere of extreme elements is very dynamic. There is so many different ways that I can approach groups of enemies that I never get bored. In praise of snow storm, I find it a very useful particle heavy power that can do some different things for me, and when I lay down to sleep, I always drift off thinking about turning the toggle on and watch mobs crawl. It’s gorgeous, and it functions well as an excellent debuff for incoming mobs. Things tend to look a lot less scary when they are snared. How bout them caves?! Snowstorm works well in setting up a secondary area of destruction when your group comes to a T intersection and your tank goes right and there is a second group on the left. I try to split up the debuffs to create effects on both groups. Using Freezing Rain on the right group, snow storm and tentacles on the left. Lightning storm in the middle. Tornado to the right, and start pushing the left group with hurricane to the center where I’m about to lay down a new freezing rain. The biggest reason I chose dark is for the tentacles, because each Defender set does something quite special. People often can overlook Storm Summoning, or call it the jack of all trades set, but I believe our best asset is positioning. Being able to throw tentacles and then push mobs anywhere with hurricane while actively debuffing them, or other areas of the mobs at the same time really gives me a feeling of putting in work. I did change the colors of the tentacles to be green to sort of resemble vines. The self heal is strong damage ability, and does a good job. It recharges about as fast as o2 boost. If I’m being honest, it gives me great pleasure seeing mobs flat on their backs being pummeled by lightning storm and tornado, not being able to hit group members from the -to hit debuffs from tentacles and or hurricane, their recharge shot to sh*t from snowstorm. I imagine that the ranged damage dealers are happy they are hitting harder from freezing rain’s resistance debuff. I would advise not taking tornado until you are ready to slot KB > KD either through overwhelming Force or sudden acceleration. I also use KB > KD in lightning storm and hurricane. I find that the introduction of sudden acceleration is a huge quality of life boost to Storm Summoning. It’s hard to say one way or another about how to play Storm Summoning, as some people love stacking the stuns from thunder clap with other secondary powers or epic power pools. It is so versatile on how you can achieve victory using different play styles. You can sit at the back of the group with hurricane always on, keeping o2 boost on everyone. You can focus on damage, you can really play this power set as actively or passively as you want with great effect. Though scattering mobs to the winds is frowned upon in group content and sometimes you’ll be passed over for invites because people don’t spend the time to ask you about your playstyle. I think anyone could have fun with the power set after they learn how the different mechanics synergize. I think thematic Storm Summoners are fun, and if you want to choose a secondary that fits a design, you should go for it. Regardless of the number crunching, there is fun and excitement to be found. I would like to point out that Storm Summoning is probably not the best secondary for Corrupters. As your lightning storm and tornado do not benefit from the scourge bonus. It’s probably great fun, but I figure there are better options that use the corrupters innate abilities better.

Hi there, I just downloaded this today to help me figure out ways to get my recharge smashed out on my Stormy Defender. I wasn't able to find the IO set Sudden Acceleration on the list of sets. I think I looked through them all, this is the set that provides Knockback to Knockdown. Thanks in advance and keep up the great work!