Meknomancer

@kitonothing to apologise for. You don't come across as negative so much as a bit down about how effective the toon is. Nothing wrong with just using it as an rp toon, i never did understand the whole rp thing but i see players enjoying themselves in PD when i pass through, but i don't think it matters what level you are for that? One last thought, have you considered playing it aggressively? Instead of following the team about, get to the mobs first, stormy is a debuff/dps set. If you get to the mob first you have time to gale/freezing rain/tornado/lightning storm/allow pets to catch up, that way your helping the team out by taking the alpha, debuffing the mob and dishing out the damage. Hope you find a way to enjoy the toon. If not its not something to worry about, i have a load of toons i love but don't play because i never got the right build for them or i'm waiting on HC to update sets and make them more playable. @StrikerFoxjust noticed the mercs names on your stormy, classics, reminded me of the original Transformers cartoons i was watching way back when. I was playing with one of these on beta and respecced into it as soon as page 5 came out, beats out my /dark /time mercs mm's easily and is one of my most fun toons. Went a different way with mine, lacking imagination. Lackeys 1-5 and the medic who i just call That Idiot.

@professoronblowi kind of see where your going with the build, masses of recharge bonuses and near 45% ranged. You say you don't mind the kb but slotting your best attack (screech) and taser with stun sets doesn't make sense. And you slotted trip mine and shockwave with kb/kd-if kb isn't an issue why waste that slot. The force feedback in shockwave will fire off often enough you don't really need to be chasing perma hasten and i think you'd be much better off slotting for damage and dropping some recharge bonuses. I'd be tossing the defiant barrage set in a t1 or t2 attack or the nuke and find a place for toxic web nade which is useful as dps and an immob, its one of the best t1 secondaries for blasters. If your taking mace its really worth chasing the s/l defence to go with the ranged, otherwise you may as well take a res patron+pet, the resistance really helps ranged def builds survive when you have def cascade failures/def debuffs. And if your going for ranged defence then you want 40% and a t4 barrier or the full 45%. On teams its not an issue but when you solo it is. I don't have this combo, i have a ton of sonic blast toons and 4 /devices blasters so its just some thoughts. Seriously, dump the stupefy sets. I don't know how you'd get the recharge and def bonuses but there has to be a better way.

By the build above do you mean the one @DocMidknightposted or are you running your own build? When you say your pets were unneeded do you mean for damage? If you have them out, even if you just run them in BG mode they contribute to your survival, especially pets like demons that have thermal buffs. Only problem i have with demons right now is the same one i have with beasts and thugs, they feel like lesser pets compared to the ones that got the page 5 treatment, simple because their upgrades don't take sets. +2/1 is a pretty low rep, its a lot more fun with big mobs especially on stormys, minions melt after you drop FR, Tornado and Lightning Storm, lieuts dont last much longer and then its just a couple of bosses. Even something like +1/8 gives you a better feel for how your build is working with mm's. +4/8 can be rough on any mm in teams the pets suffer from fighting stupidly high level enemies i've often seen mine just putting out tics of 1 damage from the t1's when up against +7's and just faceplanting when they get tickled. T4 barrier helps but with storms i often get stuck running ageless. If thats the case, especially on stuff like itf/lg/tinpex i try to run with mace mastery and powerboost and get my s/l/e defence high enough that the pets don't have to be run in bodyguard mode and i can take the alpha for them. That way i'm not resummoning every mob. Its great having a themed build but its not always workable unless you really know the mechanics of the content and how to maximise pets survival, i do love soul mastery but if i have to skip fighting pool its not enough to keep me alive the way i play, which is to hop into the centre of every mob and dump the debuffs. It sounds obvious but try a different build if that ones not working for you, sometimes a respec can make a toon into a whole different beast, if its not working as a squishy build it as a tank and vice versa.

Being needed on the team is totally down to the content run and what rep its being run at and usually what server your on. If its excel you have the 0 rep speed run all content/tf or the 4* hard mode, rarely will you see something like Yin run at +2 or higher requiring teams to stay and work together and even then there'll be someone running a 50 incarnate that can solo the whole thing. Then you have the opposite, a quiet server like reunion/indom where it takes time assemble a team so stuff gets run high rep and steamrolled, very little speeding, everyone staying together. CoH doesn't 'need' specific AT's/powersets unless its extreme hardmode content, you can play your demons/storm and if you made it a team friendly build (convert all your knockbacks to knockdowns) you have one of the higher dps mm's you can make. But dps is pretty much all /storms bring, freezing rain is a good debuff, hurricane is a no no on teams, snow storm slows mobs down, gale keeps them flattened in place, but you aren't bringing anything major to a team in the same way a /kin or /cold would. Its just the damage. Storm is the most fun secondary by a mile but not many teams enjoy having one along as they basically create chaos scattering/causing mobs to run away. Thats also a problem on melee pets if you can't find a way to keep the mob close. Nothing worse than watching demons/necro/nin/beasts chasing down a couple of minions on the edge of your freezing rain out of supremacy range. If your used to playing on low rep speed runs then your fender will be doing way more damage, pets are slow, your always waiting for them to arrive and by the time they do the mobs wiped and everyones on to the next one. Any other AT you can just go with the team and blast away. The game is 99% easy mode, the best way to figure out if you like what your playing is to set a high rep and solo a bit or pick something challenging to test yourself against like a tf/sf with a decent av in it, that way you quickly learn what you can do and what you can't and you'll realise mm's are fantastic, they just aren't fantastic playing in teams until you figure them out.

I kite the nuke. If you just dumped everything on its arse with freezing rain the mobs that aren't flip flopping are usually too busy trying to run out of the patch and away from the tornado to be much of a threat. If your looking for a truly safe /stormy then dark blast is the way to go, you can hop in the mob at anytime knowing the nuke will debuff their to hit and back out using life drain to top up hp.

I remember the day stalkers got /ice and seeing one of these pretty much soloing an itf a few days later they do look great.

I agree on the necro/ff feeling like a much better play. I put that down to page 5 changes. Until thugs/beasts/demons get the same treatment my thugs/time is on a break. Only difference i see in power picks is i took empty clips on mine for the force feedback proc/temporal selection/assault instead of the fighting pool.

@JayboHno i don't use other players builds, i just look at them for ideas. Nobody plays the game the same way and when you copy someone elses build you quickly realise it doesnt suit your own playstyle. I did post a mercs/bubs somewhere but i respecced it a few times since then, dropped group fly and fighting, put medicine in and mace with power boost. Had my first death at vet lvl 18 after playing through praetoria and redside and joining a pug group blueside playing the provost marchand arc. Thats when i realised i didnt need medicine and i wish i'd kept group fly. Theres an av in that on a small lava pit map at the end surrounded by a mine field and my pets stepped on every one of them instantly. I'd already dropped the proc in commando as his blue bar kept dipping below 50% in long fights. Medic seems to keep me and the other pets healed up so i don't think medicine is essential. Right now the pool is just a mule for set bonuses, hp, s/l res, the gargantuan rech bonus. I did try old skool slotting with interrupts but that was useless, you click aid other when your fighting nems jaegers/malta zeus titans/cot demon lords throwing fireballs and its just a wasted endurance click, it'll never fire off. Only useful between mobs. Looks like this currently but i can see myself dumping medicine and bringing group fly back into it:

@Crossie and this:

Defiant was my home server for years til server merge and i remember the regular all AT tf's with fondness but live servers were totally different from HC when it comes to building toons. I didn't have multiple accounts on live with billions saved up so i could buy a single pvp io for 4 bill. I never had the inf/merits or whatever was needed for winter sets. My monthly store points were all spent on AT pieces. As to the principles of a good build thats a tough question. Most importantly its got to be fun for you but not one that ignores the primary which fenders have that benefit the team more than any other AT or one that ignores the secondary and doesnt bring any damage to the team. HC is seriously proc friendly and you can get ridiculous amounts of damage in fender builds now. Been teaming on pugs lately with way too many that don't realise simple things like applying buffs such as bubs/cold/thermal etc can be reapplied on exiting missions and stack up when you enter the next mish and apply again, or buffers that don't watch for buffs running out because they are too busy blasting then watching team mates die who were previously unkillable. Keep the buff bar open on the team.

@Crossie, check out @Nemu build (and all the info he provides) if your stuck on psi epic, somewhere near the bottom of that page. I'd swap in mu and powersink having played one on live and here for a few years i know what a nightmare they are on the blue bar. Its an old link not updated for page 5 sonic changes but it looks like an easy swap of scream for screech.

Henchmen Def stats: Dispersion bub, maneuvres, power boosted bubbles Henchmen Res stats: Serum and pet uniques

What Carnifax said, with the addition that frost will hit way more targets increasing the chances of it proccing and crosspunch is just great on any toon for the extra recharge it brings. Frost with CS proc-Frozen aura is just a dead mob.

Yup, use unslotters, put the attuned piece on the /ah and buy back a standard piece. You'll be buying back the piece you put on /ah basically it'll just have the catalyst removed. Unless someones playing the market again.

I have no clue but here's something possible, Really not fussed about f/c def when i play wp toons but i am concerned about s/l resistance and e/ne defence. Problem is its dm and i can't get those without dropping recharge which i want for soul drain. I'd drop shadow maul/touch of fear and replace it with crosspunch and an ff+rech.

We'll have to agree to disagree on TJ, it isn't just the - to hit bumping your def, its the - damage and.....its a perfect herding tool when you want to go over aggro cap. I do agree mobs die too fast on teams but if you solo +4/8 beam isn't the fastest mob killer and you'd have slowed response up pretty much for every mob. If you toss the 6th apoc piece in disintegrate you'd be hitting softcap to psi too. Does PB boost your accuracy? Or is PB boosted farsight+kismet providing enough for SR with 0 acc slotted? Probably but i still prefer to have a small amount in and if your worried about the aoe drop (i assume you'd pull slots from the zephyr sets) 4 shield breakers would make up for it, almost.

Thats great news, i'll have to find a way to squeeze that in. I was sure sent and domi version was still a clicky summon every couple of min.

@KosmTV Its an interesting build. I made on of these a couple years back and it was my fav /bio sent and should be better since page 5 but my own is in need of a respec. Slotting short circuit for end drain feels like a wasted opportunity for extra dps. Voltaic Sent isn't a toggle so it can be annoying dropping it every few minutes. I see you also skipped Tesla Cage which is the highest single target dps on elec sents if you proc it out. I skipped it too. Don't like the animation and didn't have room for it. Unless its for thematic reasons i think you'd get more from fighting+leadership over force of will. I tend to go for more neg e/e/f/c defence and then some s/l res i try to aim for 40'ish def+75% res but i never hit those and it hasn't bothered me so far on the other sents and i have a lot of them running /bio. Recharge is still king. You want loads of it, problem is you also want quite a lot of slow resistance and procs. Can't get it all in. Agility alpha will negate a lot of those procs you slotted from firing off. Much better off with musculature on sents. Their damage isn't fantastic and every bit counts. Charge up wants the gaussian proc. I'd try to fit in the unbreakable 7.5 for the extra hp, it makes a big difference. More hp=more regen. Lightning Field is a huge end cost, especially slotted like that. As i said i haven't respecced mine but i plan to go something like this, may drop some slow res/procs for more recharge i'll see how it goes. If recharge isn't awful i'd prefer lightning bolt over charged bolts. Defence isn't great and s/l res drops to 70'ish once offensive adapatation is running. Really could use a lot more recharge in the build.

Your right i notice its much better when slotted with multiple hold procs as i spam the single target hold and use the mob hold as soon as its up. Cycling through the stun/fear/immob/hold as fast as you can gives it a chance to proc those, just a shame the stun sets don't have a chance for damage piece and Reverberant doesn't have 10 slots.

Energy is an odd one, i wouldn't normally 6 slot full sets but in this case i do. If kb isn't a problem then i'd just build for softcap to the important stuff, make a bit of an effort to get some psi defence then put everything else into recharge and resistance. Sadly this doesn't leave anything for epics, i've played a few /nrg sents and always run out of slots for them which is a shame as i think sents get the best epics in game. I don't go overboard on defence, 45% suffices unless your intending to run out and solo itrials in which case i can see why you'd want to build them so high. Nova maybe better off with an eradication set in for the last bit of neg nrg defence. Anyway here's how i'd go:

Its possible and i never noticed. You did remind me why i went sorcery on a nin/time though. Arcane bolt slots a force feedback+rech which bumps all sort of stuff. Really hard getting perma overgrowth on any AT without huge sacrifices and sorcery works really well on mm's, every power benefits them except rune/flight and thats always handy for you as a quick break free/bumped resistance. And who doesnt like flight. I build stuff for myself i'd never expect anyone to copy it and think its good, its why you will always find stuff like Lifegiving Spores and Entangling Aura in my nature builds. I play badly too, hopping right into the centre of the mobs and popping LG macro grabbing all the aggro with EA and just hitting the heal if i need it, drop Spore Cloud on something til the pets catch up, usually anything from 30-60 seconds, if you don't have group fly they move at a walking pace, if you take team teleport you get even more grief from team mates than running group fly. I don't mind dying or running up debt its all badges towards red accolades for me, turns out thats hard to do on a /nature no matter how badly you play it.

Well said @Heatstroke. The sentinel role is simple. Fun.

I don't have one and can't see myself playing one, symphony is all cone control and kin's are made for melee so you'd have to hop in the mob, hop out the mob, hop in and out in and out and so on. Having said that dark/kin corr is one of my favourites and thats how i play it. Symphony doesn't feel like a high damage set but kin may help there. Possibly. I always take agility on kins for the recharge/defence/end mod, that means damage procs don't fire off as often so i end up slotting them differently. If all you want is 75% s/l resist and 45% ranged thats easy. If you want damage you have to give up something. Defence or resistance or both. Here's an easy build. If you want more damage dump the crap sets of artillery for 5 posi's (skip the dmg/rech) and glimpse of the abyss proc in dreadful discord, throw 5 pieces of ragnarok (skip the knockdown) and a posi chance for damage in confounding chant. Should be just enough melee and aoe defence to get you into the mobs for fulcrum/transfer/transfusion when you need to, but you'll have to be fast:

Symphonys fear gets a minor damage component with a large range but not very wide cone. Mind has a massive cone, shorter range, higher damage, while Dark gets a -to hit debuff. I know which one i'd rather have. I'll get my damage from other sources, - to hit is too good to leave out.

Depends how you build it. Those debuffs will significantly increase your damage if you have attacks you can use such as fissure for your aoe and seismic smash for single targets. If you don't mind the ugly rock armour which you can't minimise. Slowed response+quicksand+earthquake will mean mobs have almost 0 defence or resistance. SR+Earthquake take procs. So does stone prison/stone cages/fissure/seismic smash. Problem with proccing them is you drop a lot of recharge and defence bonuses and while rock armour+farsight will give you a big bump there you leave yourself with very little resistance when you do take a hit. Slowed response is an underrated debuff. Achilles+LG+SB procs with some acc+rech thrown in and it'll do good damage on top of debuffing. Or you can just build for support, totally depends on how you want to slot it. Times Juncture does huge -to hit and lowers incoming damage and can take the dark watcher and pacing of the turtle proc effectively increasing your defence and lowering the number of attacks coming your way which means you can get away with not softcapping if you don't mind playing up close and personal, mob should be fully controlled anyway, earth is one of the best sets for this. Messing about in mids it looks GD awful but you never know til you try it out. Test server is there for a reason.