Sovera

Yes, because we pushed for the recharge to go down to 60 seconds. It was 90 seconds before. Thankfully Booper allowed it since it makes a large difference. Chains suck for several reasons: any miss stops the chain and there is always a 5% in there. The damage also does not feel anything special so I don't even know why it has a 20 seconds recharge as if it was the Spin of ranged attacks. Regardless slotting for pure damage or bonuses is fine too, we don't need to laser focus on procs. I'm only playing on a Sentinel so my views are skewed but it behaves well enough at level40-ish. I need a bit more play time and money for gear to see how it develops.

Until the courageous Mids devs tackle the convolutedness that is Storm and incorporate it in the program I am using Water to sub for it. Chain Lightning uses Targeted AoE so I took Water Burst. Hydro Blast takes a Force Feedback proc which is what Hailstones does as well, so perfect. Mids devs came out as the unsung heroes that they are. Next reply has the actual build. Updated program can be found over https://midsreborn.com/ Powers are taken as I did for leveling (read the Gust part) with a 5k jetpack bought from the P2W vendor until I got to Fly. I later toyed with the idea of replacing Intensify with Fly since it will not affect the build much either way. This was a slow leveling with generic IOs for part of the way so here are some observations: - The set will feel like a watered down ranged version of Radiation Melee where we focus on a boss and incidental damage takes care of the spawn. To support this I suggest using /optionset ShowVillainName 1 and /optionset ShowVillainBars 1 - It takes too long to prep up so be prepared to be flexible and drop Storm Cell on one group, then alternate with Category 5 on the next. Even in a duo playing at +1x8 it was common to have the boss at half HP by the time I was finished dropping both ground skills, popped Intensify, and finally started with blasting. In a full team it will just be frustrating trying to do the full prep each time. - I leveled with Gust until 24 and when I took Cloudburst I respecced out of Gust. I would not advise this on generic IOs as by Synapse/Yin it was only mild gap-ey with Hasten up but leaving me with 5-6 seconds of downtime when Hasten was not up. With how the set works the gaps made me double dip into lost damage with the mechanics of Storm Cell and Category Five. For those not aware of the mechanics both Storm Cell and Category Five will do random attacks if we use our Storm powers on targets in them (we don't need to be in them, just our targets). The gaps both mean I was doing less damage by waiting for the powers to recharge but also less damage from Storm Cell/Cat 5. Gust would have fixed this. - At level 30-ish I got three Decimation sets and the rotation was smooth already which leads me to think that if someone is leveling with generics then keep Gust until late (40-ish, maybe more), but if having money to purchase the IOs then at 25 it is fine to transition off Gust. This will leave hardcore exemplaring (Posi 1 and 2) without a third attack which Chain Lightning only poorly substitutes but exemplaring to Synapse already has three attacks. With how such deep exemplaring kills so many bonuses even Synapse is bound to be gap filled though but there are no simple solutions since Gust is not needed once we have our three big hitters. Maybe I can work some replacement slotting so that Gust takes over a mule but sadly ranged sets don't have S/L which is what I wasted slots on. - I leveled without Inexhaustible or Rebuild DNA up to 24-25 ish and it was a nightmare. Not even Recovery Serums could keep my blue bar up. So I heartily suggest pushing a power back (Intensify, maybe?) and level with at least Inexhaustible. By level 30-ish I had Rebuild DNA as slotted in the build and found my endurance problems to have been solved, but I do not have Tough and Weave running yet. - I also leveled without Jet Stream since I loathe cones. This made the AoE pretty poor but it was fine-ish since I was playing with a friend who would help. For pure solo the lack of Jet Stream would make for slow killing. Chain Lightning is okay but did not warrant the 20 seconds recharge since it's secondary effect of endurance drain is fluff. But it's easy to do a Lightning Strike/Cloudburst + Hailstones + Chain Lightning rotation in AoE situations. - Once I got Category Five the AoE felt fine. Ish. I could mostly mow a +0 spawn before Cat 5 ended and didn't even have Intensify slotted. With the help of the FF proc in Hailstones and Hailstones getting extra KD chance in Storm Cell I have zero complaints about recharge. Things are up when needed. - Cloudburst, Lightning Strike, Hailstones, repeat, makes for a smooth rotation without particular gaps even by level 30 and I don't even have LotGs etc slotted in. The DoT nature of both Cloudburst and Hailstones will make for overkill but it is what it is. Lightning Strike is the goat btw. I keep Hailstones last so the Force Feedback duration is not eaten by animation times. Not a worry later on with more global speed and might make Hailstone sit better after Cloudburst. Cloudburst does good damage, but between travel time and DoT it's common to be wasted damage and that's why I use it first. - Dropping two ground based powers, then using Intensify and THEN starting to do damage is a hefty ramp up, but Sentinels have the defenses for it and I did not try to be fancy: just flew on top of a group's head and then placed everything. To make things easier I used binds: /bind shift+1 powexec_location target Storm Cell and /bind shift+2 powexec_location target Category Five. Replace shift+1 for whatever keypress you'd like then target an enemy to drop the powers. If preferring another method consult https://homecoming.wiki/wiki/Powexec_location_(Slash_Command) - Speaking of Intensify the damage boost numbers are very mild (25% damage boost as opposed to 50% from most Sentinel sets) but adds an extra 20% chance of making Storm Cell/Category Five do damage. This means drop Storm Cell + Category 5 and THEN use Intensify so all attacks have the extra 20% chance. - The build went for 33% defense to most since I found this enough when playing a Bio Sentinel (even slotted for endurance Rebuild DNA still heals us). This is more so with Storm that causes mobs to slowly panic-run while debuffed. If things get bad a small purple can be eaten that will put the build at 45% defense. Later on Taishibishi (Caltrops) helps if solo as a one slot wonder (auto hits, ready to be used at every spawn) by adding it if needed as it creates a zone that mobs will refuse to enter thanks to the fear effect Caltrops has. This is not strictly needed with Storm and thus it is a flex power. I would not bother using it on a team, but your mileage may vary. I found the build to be fairly nice. It has a certain Controller-ish aspect to it where dropping all our ground effects causes a lot of soft CC and keeps things fairly safe for our team. Even not fully slotted the damage was nice even if by Sentinel standard so not super super but things dying at a reasonable pace. Much better than Water for example, and animations crisp and fast unlike Radiation. The AoE was not amazing but I blame my stubbornness in not taking the cone. With that said I feel Storm can take a role of straggler mopping since Storm Cell/Cat 5 will usually still be going once the squishy minions have soaked the initial brunt. I will report once I get some pylon times.

That said Tar Trap + Storm Cell are a good pairing.

Not really much of a point in sapping stuff though. Most things are dead before the sapping is complete and without some hefty -recovery all the NPCs need is 1 endurance to fire whatever attack. I would stick to whatever brings extra endurance to make up for the hefty endurance costs, and if possible some extra recharge might not hurt though it's not 100% needed. Just Hailstone with 50% KD proc chance in Storm Cell should be enough to make recharge sweet enough. Definitely endurance or recovery which does bring us back to having /elec as a good choice, and thematic to boot.

On one hand I am someone who got to a point where I had most TFs memorized and would jump ahead and go to an objective instead of killing everything along the way (Synapse in particular with pre-emptive 'anyone got a teleport when this mission ends?'). On the other there are certain TFs where this is not really welcome such as of Posi 1 and 2, or Yin. Partly because they are fast already, partly because they are at a level where low level characters crave sweet sweet XP. Synapse is a different beast because it is so long, but I've trimmed it to just under an hour with these antics.

I find you a bit thin skinned, Snarky. Just an observation instead of an attack, though it is your (repeated) posts about this sort of thing that prompted this opinion. That said some of your peeves are perfectly justified. I too would not touch a +4 TF while leveling. But I find the weaker/dumber/more puzzled the team the more fun it is for me. I just like the extra ordeal of pushing through especially since my characters tend to be able to solo most things so the wipes don't tend to affect me. That said I've tried to duo Market Crash about three times with a friend and we always stall on the last boss what with the friend unable to survive the adds and me having to run from the debuff making the boss regenerate its HP. Plenty easy on a full team but hard on a duo that is not specialized.

Good to see you're still around as well, mate, and, well, the damage 😄 Though part of what makes Bio appealing is a bit lost on Storm since the pseudo pets don't fully inherit Bio's extra crunch. But I find no reason to skip on extra damage when Bio is perfectly sturdy on a Sentinel to tackle on most things. Because of this I might consider Stone Armor skinned to look like ice just for some extra recharge and Brimstone, but Storm is endurance hungry and Bio has the tools for that.

Storm/Cold Corruptor seems like a nice match with Sleet being thrown in first and then Storm slowing things who are trying to move away from Sleet. Plus other than some largely fire and forget buffs and some debuffs only needed for tougher targets Cold is mostly just to throw Sleet which allows going ham with Storm. That said Storm/Bio Sent for me.

I was interested when you mentioned pylons and AVs because of prospective numbers. But then you veered into maths. Not aimed at Puma but it would be interesting to have more numbers posted. Back in the Fire Armor tuning page after each patch I'd either hit some pylons or do a Trapdoor and report on my findings. I feel this to be a bit lacking with Storm testing currently. On one hand we've had some mention of Blasters killing it in Trapdoor (under three minutes) but was that because of Storm or despite Storm? Blasters are a mixed bag for these tests because Storm is pretty defensive so it gives them leeway to go ham with their secondaries. But any other AT that has access to it lacks a damaging secondary. And yes, I know, Storm Summoning is there, but despite the brouhaha about it being so amazing it's a slow DoT based low numbers set. What it does great is adding bonus damage on top of the blast set, but no one will go around using Storm Summoning and expect to kill mobs at any decent clip without the help of their blast set. Not to mistake Storm Summoning with this thread's Storm Blast.

You don't really need to build for 45% defense on a Sentinel, especially on teams. But you can, it's just overkill. Drawing from my own experience I think a middle ground of 33% defense suits a Sentinel better, and when, if, taking damage then gobble a small purple to reach 45%. But it may be a dozen missions before feeling the need to eat a small purple. Even solo I did the Trapdoor test with 33% defense and did not even need the small inspirations since we open with a nuke and mop up with AoEs which reduces a pack's size to half. Bigger things noticed: - No need for Tactics either since most your powers are already at 120%-ish/140%-ish to hit +3 enemies even with the Kismetic unique removed and both Tactics and Mind Link turned off. Smaller details: - Replacing the two generics for two Preventive Medicine will add 2.5% S/L resistance. - Replacing two LotG in Maneuvers for two Reactive Defenses will add another 1.5% S/L. - 5 slotting Brawl with Hectacomb hurts my soul. I would place those slots in Reconstruction and place a full Panaceia there if you are hurting for recharge. Then the spare slot could go to Integration for yet another two Preventive Medicine for another 2.5% S/L. - You have the Shield Wall 5% resist unique slotted in but not the Reactive Defenses 3% resist. - The slash proc in Dreadful Wail is going to be resisted more than a Eradication energy proc. - Amplify with no slots is recharging in 35 seconds. Your nuke is recharging in 26 seconds. Try to spare a couple slots for Amplify in order for both clickies to align. - Replace the damage in Dreadful Wail for recharge/accuracy. If you do decide to try lowering your ranged defense to 33% you will have more slots to play around with, but keeping it at 45% will work just as well so it is your character and your decision.

As Pulverizer said money making is only as hard as you wish to make it. Some people will embrace farming, others will play the market, but once at 50 money rolls in. The main tip is selling your merits and all this requires is adjusting your targeted play time (try to stick to either TFs or Ouroborous missions and avoid radio missions). This is how I played and made most of my cash. Do check the guide in the signature on some tips and keep in mind you should expect some 'casual' 40-50 mill a day by doing a single Tinpex (30 minutes total) and Hami (ditto) with just selling merits. So 'expensive' builds costing 600-700 mill can be achieve in two weeks-ish but actually sooner because we are only counting on selling raw merits while you're actually still getting inf from killing mobs on top of salvage/recipes. Regarding your build nothing seems too out there in your request. I would say not to dismiss Hasten out of hand since it has no visible graphic when in use and Bio is hungry for recharge, but, your character and your theme so your decision. Even if you decide to only use SOs I would still buy generic IOs either since they don't turn red every three levels while leveling, but as Pulverizer said in that case there is no actual need for a 'build' since it's just a case of stacking heal and recharge on heals and accuracy, damage and recharge on attacks. With what Pulverizer posted you have at least an idea of which powers to take. If you need more info do post and we'll try to help.

Even though tempers (mine mostly) were a bit frayed last time I posted I would like to ask for a test on that earlier iteration of Storm Cell recharging faster. I don't recall the numbers being talked about other than there had been an attempt at making it recharge faster and duration being halved, but the consensus being 'it was not good'. I don't particularly like this 'trust me' approach. But at some point this was discussed and tested so the devs were at least open to the idea even if it got scrapped. But rather than having a nebulous 'trust me on this' I would ask for that old iteration to have a few days in Brainstorm so more players can give it a whirl. If the consensus is that no, it really is not good, then carry on, but since it seems to be what most(?) players are asking for it would be nice to give players a chance to chime in instead of having the choices already made for them based on a 'trust me'.

Cat 5 is a special power though. Even though it holds a place we would traditionally call a 'nuke' it would not be too unlikely to compare it to a Build-Up or even Aim sort of power. It is less about doing damage by itself and more about making your other powers do more damage (that seems to be the intent and a mirroring of Storm Cell but with added bonus damage from Cat 5 itself). This is very much a non traditional way of doing things and thus it cannot be a direct comparison. I'm not going to say it is a good or a bad experiment but it is an experiment on doing things differently. But because it is not a traditional nuke it requires being tested outside of the normal box we put nukes in. This requires actual gameplay tests such as Trapdoors or whathaveyous. In this more complete test encapsulating Storm it does look like it works well (someone posted a three minute Trapdoor with a Blaster). If you can muster the energy I would say try a couple Trapdoors (or whatever you might feel like) with that Radiation character and a couple with the Storm and even if it is not super scientific with so few runs but give us the metrics you got from it.

Sure, should be the end result. Mind that Radiation Melee is a bit anemic these days what with the change made to Irradiated Ground. That skill did a good portion of the lifting.

So we're saying that 28-30 seconds recharge for a linchpin power is too long even for normal casual teams, and the offer we get is bumping it to 40 seconds? As I would say to anyone else who would suggest it, not sure if trolling. No, of course not. And I will be completely honest here that this offer smells of that 'see how bad we can make it? Doesn't this make the previous offer more appealing?' which worked 100%. Yes, keep it as it is if the other option is making it even worse. We are in a focused thread, a majority (we may need a poll to clear doubts on if it is indeed a majority) points out en masse a flaw of the set but we get a no, this is not the feedback we want. Honestly I'll drop out of this and may whatever come out be palatable unlike the effort at balancing the new pool powers so much they turned into unpicked powers.

We keep on comparing oranges to apples. A camp wants to have more recharge so it can be applied sooner. The other camp says placing it down faster does not matter because the power is perma. Basically one camp is talking about regular gameplay (short combat) and the other is talking about fighting AVs (long combat). We spend 95% of the time doing regular gameplay and 5% of the time fighting AVs.

I would, but I keep hearing about 'trust me bro' instead of actual arguments. My argument is that a typical fight does not last longer than 30 seconds. If it means the recharge is down to 1 minute then with just generic IOs and Hasten it ought to be up every 20 seconds or so. Alright, counter argument, your turn.

Shortening is not a problem and I've seen the argument made against it. But, a 30 second duration should be fine, no? What fights other than an AV last that long? We usually blaze through a spawn at +4 on a full team in about 15-20 seconds. While leveling we usually are at +0 or +1 and the speed is the same. Not aimed at Tyger in particular with my following words, but the argument about how the power is 'perma' with a couple SOs is also puzzling. What does it matter if it is 'perma'? Why is this even brought to the conversation? After being cast the power will not run after the player at a good enough speed to be reliable, and on top of that will trail -behind- the player instead of being cast 40-60y -ahead-. 'But Carrion Creepers has the same cooldown!' So what? What does that comparison serve? Is Carrion Creeper a linchpin? No, it adds some CC and adds damage. It is a good power, but it is not a linchpin. I would put Seeds of Confusion in the linchpin podium, and, 'lo', it has a native recharge of 60 seconds so it is up for every spawn pretty darn early without need to be chockful of IOs. I'm puzzled at the struggle in this change when all it took was a few dissenting voices for Beanbag to be rolled back and in the meanwhile some top quality of life is under a perma repel effect. I can see that someone soloing on their ranged character might not be super bothered with the 28-30-second-all-IOed-out recharge since fights take longer as a solo ranged character what with chasing mobs and scattering. Even then a 30 second duration should not be horrible since they have unloaded tStorm Cell, their nuke, pew pewed, and there might be a few living mobs at the end but those can be moped up even without Storm Cell's benefit.

I'm not sure why a focused feedback thread that has heavily insisted on how Storm Cell needs to recharge faster had an answer that was no. But I'll wait for the next patch and see the changes before adding more to this.

Not sure if serious. Blaster nukes do more damage but recharge slower as well. When I usually say that Sentinels might actually do about the same damage as Blasters if we had an actual damage meter like Recount/Details/Skada it is because a Blaster will use their nuke every two groups where the Sentinel might squeeze it once a group. My 'feel' (not backed by math but simply by having played the game for a couple years now) is that if we had such a damage meter we might well see Sentinels catch up by dint of using more often instead of when using it being super strong. The example you quoted turns that upside down. Not only does the Blaster do more damage but also recharges faster. If anything the recharge should be swapped around with Blasters using a powerful Full Auto once a group (90 seconds Full Auto) but Sentinels able to use a weaker Full Auto twice a group (one minute Full Auto). Or follow the usual formula where the Blaster uses it every two groups and the Sentinel once a group. I don't even play AR but this is just glaringly obvious.

Yes, though I am not super in favor of a toggle that forces ranged into somewhat melee ranged it would still be better. But we already have Faraday Cage which seems to be begging to have the mechanic duplicated of resummoning the ground effect.

To be honest Storm Cell feels more like Amplify than Amplify does. It's a power that amps the damage in an innovative manner that is not just % in raw damage. But just like Super-Strength and Rage so does Storm Cell make the rest of the set tick and without it the set is limping along. We may be too far along to just re-do the whole set now, otherwise I would suggest tweaking all powers to work better at baseline and Storm Cell to act like a damage boost. As it is Storm Cell is superficially a boost, but in practice it is like playing SS without Rage. At the risk of sounding negative I once more feel that there is a disconnect with the team of devs and the game. DoTs, damage that starts weak to grow, long recharges in crucial powers when even a moderate team will destroy a regular +4 group and move on the next. this is not how the game is at the moment outside the 1% that is hardmode TFs. This is not so much a teeth grinding fist shaking remark and more of a gentle nudge that the game is more than spreadsheets. Now other than this I don't think the idea behind Storm is bad at all. Even the weaker nature of the t9 is not that bad in my opinion because while a Blaster will nuke most of the spawn there will always be lieutenants and a boss or two that survives and needs to be killed. The longer lasting T9 and Storm Cell ensures that whatever AT is picked for Storm will be blasting all the mobs until they all go. but I will echo the others that Storm Cell needs A) to be immobile (can't trust the AI to suddenly decide it ought to go climb stairs for a mob plinking in the distance) and B) decent recharge with lower duration since that is a lot more crucial as fights in CoH do not last long but are quickly repeated.

90 seconds recharge for such a crucial power is too long. Just like lasting 60 seconds serves no purpose. Which fight lasts 60 seconds other than an AV fight? It ought to be at least like Seeds of Confusion or others at 60 seconds so we cannot spam it but it is available at every group. Then it lasts for 30 seconds which is about right for both solo and mop everything and in teams does not matter much. With this the power no longer needs to follow anyone. In any sort of regular team the linchpin of the set is either going to be available every two groups or the player will decide whether to use it when most of the second group is dead. Does this matter if most of the second group is dead? Only in terms of spreadsheets, but the set already lacks a nuke with a DoT style T9.

Unrelated, but not sure if it just me or what, but your signature is 20x the size of your posts.

Still, the point remains. Try it first and then report on your findings.