Onlyasandwich

I really liked the concept here, and thought I'd share my own iteration of the build. I'm not saying it achieves all of the goals set out by @HachiMan2015, but it serves my playstyle. The slotting and power choice advice was quite helpful! Dominators are a bit of foreign territory for me. My permadom window is a bit tighter, which isn't ideal. If I am off, I'd love to know! I've also lost a very meaningful amount of ranged defense, though S/L is still very similar. I really like the idea of using Power Up as a sort of opener - buff your defense for the Alpha and damage of your opener as well. What I have in return is more proc optimization overall. Power Burst especially does much more damage. To be honest, I'm not certain that the procs in sleet are worth it, but there they are. I know they are not generally great in other rain powers. I was also able to fit in Rune of Protection. This is a nice fallback measure to have in a tight spot, and helps save a slot to be used elsewhere by providing a mule for one of the global defense IOs. It's hard to resist grabbing it when we are already there! Finally, I have snuck in almost complete -recharge immunity. This is something I value on all builds a bit more than most folks, and I see it being even more important on a Dom, so you can preserve your perma-dom timer.

Seconding @Dark Dove here. Trick arrow may be more in line with your expectations, as you don't have to fiddle with double aoe splashing the tiny radius of envenom to maximize output. TA is just super strong now, and is equally great solo as well. Fire and forget debuffs with quick animations all around, and even a good buff in the emp arrow now. Poison may be easier to wedge in thematically if you don't envision a bow user. I love poison too, but it has more dud powers overall.

This is my experience as well. Water Jet is sort of your "big punch" like Blaze or Bitter ice Blast, but it doesn't fit the role quite as well in a few ways. Even procced out, it all feels a bit "mushy" as you say. For this reason, I advise really investing your best frankenslotting (acc/damHO, Purple Damage IO) and highest quality damage procs in Water Jet, and spending your tidal power on spewing it back to back. Dehydrate can be turned into a good puncher as well, as it has the -defense proc capabilities. I prefer to maximize this element rather than relying on it for healing, but can understand why someone might frankenslot for a bit of healing as well. As far as aoe goes, water is set of course. I do want to give a special mention to Steam Spray, which I underestimated a bit at first, but won me over as my favorite aoe in the set. It has a very generous cone, great base damage, and excellent proccing potential (-def, acc -def, ranged aoe sets, and also ideal base recharge). It also adds more diversity to your damage types (pure fire damage on water blast - waat).

@Sovera So I did hop on and run through a few basic scenarios. I went even con just for direct comparison, though certainly the usefulness of some of these powers scales with harder content. This was just a simple +0/8 simple outdoor S/L map. I ran +4/8 as well just to refresh myself on any special troubles there, and the experience was basically the same - it just took a bit longer to blast things down. I tried running without hurricane as you are, and it was a big old mess. I can definitely see where you would feel like you are just sort of throwing peas in a dumpster soloing large crowds without something to keep them hemmed in. The fear effect from LS, Tornado, and even FR to a degree cause a lot of scatter and general messiness even when the knockback is handled. In this situation, you will definitely get more mileage out of your optimal DPA single target attacks. Even here though, Lightning storm still provides good value against bosses. Between my good resistance/defense, and the "chaos mitigation" I was still fine, but it was an annoying and suboptimal experience. I turned hurricane back on and life was good. I open with FR, hover top for a LS, toss tornado, and blast with aoes. When minions are down switch to my ST chain. Refresh tornado as it comes up - on my build it is recharging approximately every ~15 seconds depending on FFback procs. Tornado procs FFback almost every time regardless of target #s, as it is simply based on the summon itself. As I blast with aoes, I circle the mob with hurricane on. This keeps them more or less clumped nicely, and LS was consistently hitting 3-4 targets this way. As for damage from the storm powers: Lightning storm took anywhere from 2-4 hits to kill an even con minion, depending on procs. Very rarely would it actually take 4, given proc rates. If I got really unlucky and no procs ever went off, it would be more like 6-7 hits, so I can see where you may be getting some of those numbers. It's important to note that LS keeps on blasting with a pretty fast refire rate as well for quite some time! You don't have to be camping on a spawn all day to see good return on that cast. If tornado had its way with a minion all by itself, it took ~8 seconds to kill start to finish. This gets a lot more value in multi-target situations of course, and it can be a little harder to leverage the aoe on tornado, as it likes to switch targets a bit haphazardly. Obviously taking 8 seconds to kill a minion isn't awesome in a vacuum, but consider a few factors: It has fast activation and persists for a good while, allowing you to continue getting value from that short animation cast across several mobs. You are still blasting while it ticks down. It is autohit. It does real work in keeping stuff off your back and adding further consistency to Freezing rain's knockdown. It is providing constant FFback procs with recast, fueling your other long cooldowns. The true beauty of storm in my experience comes from an accumulation of damage from multiple angles. Each individual component is not exactly a nuke, but they are each very efficient for what they put out, and the whole picture adds up very quickly. The trade-off is that is about as end-hungry as they come. Personally I actually like a bit of challenge from this perspective, as it forces me to consider power usage a little more tactically, and I actually appreciate the scenarios that allow me to really "unleash." Conserve power is a nice "unleash on demand" button. On most teams, this is a little different of course. My typical opener on a team is still Freezing Rain, and I still spam tornado. LS typically only gets use if we are moving a little slower than average, or hitting a tougher target. Often, it can be useful to position LS as a sort of "goalie" behind the spawn to ensure things stay in your FR, or as @EnjoyTheJourney mentioned, a sort of protective beacon for a ranged class that is feeling harassed. On most teams these days, my own actual aoes may not even get that much use, as the minions melt so quickly once Freezing Rain is down. Single target cleanup becomes the name of the game here. I rarely use hurricane on teams. It is mostly a solo tool. It does find use on lower level teams, or when everything goes to garbage. If we aggro a giant room full of loosely spawned Resistance for example, I can throw on hurricane and do fast loops, kissing everything in sight. As I encircle the giant mob everything gets debuffed to nothing, and they slowly congregate toward the center for easy disposal as my team catches up with clearing them out. All this being said, I will insert a brief note of sacrilege here on the Defender forums - Storm is friendlier and easier to synergize on a controller for sure. I enjoy Defender storm for its unique playstyle and the power of its debuffs, but any sort of /Storm controller will probably be a faster high level soloer overall and easier to manage on teams. My personal favorite is Fire/Storm, which basically just waltzes in with hotfeet on, a thousand tornadoes in tow. Mobs melt before they know what hit them, and you have a beautiful KD patch in Bonfire to supplement FR. The aoe immob makes leveraging Tornado an absolute "breeze" - ho ho ho! I see that you are pulling your next build with /water instead. From an optimization perspective, I think this is a good call! Water is just an all-around wonderful blast set, with room for procs, and plenty of built-in utility.

I will try to unplug my expectations and give it a go later!

From reading your playstyle responses, I'm not certain you are using optimal tactics to leverage your powers, @Sovera. Can you tell me how you usually approach a fresh spawn? Lightning storm does more than 1/10th of an even con minion's hp, though it certainly isn't one shotting them. The purple damage proc also makes a big difference. If you position it above the crowd after dropping freezing rain, it does a great job helping keep mobs knocked down in place and will consistently hit multiple targets. It also chews bosses up and almost completely neutralizes their damage. As for your question regarding when you would have multiple tornados, the answer is basically always. Spam it on cool down. It follows you mob to mob churning out damage. The tics are small but super fast. It is another distraction that keeps mobs off your back as well. It does only proc ffback upon summon, but you should be summoning it a lot. Typically your whole kill zone will always be contained within freezing rain, and you should be able to blow them up nicely while it persists. All of these tools work much better if you can keep the mobs packed tight. I know you don't like hurricane, but this is the reason why hurricane is so important to solo storm defenders. You might find that you prefer the set on a controller, where you have an aoe immob to make this more controllable. /Dark blast is also a classic companion on defenders for its immob.

If you are indeed running 4X /Rads, RI may not really come into play much. In this case, Choking Cloud actually comes into its own. 4 Rads running this will passively lock down any group just by waltzing in - no animation time required, no need to worry about whether the power is recharged. Just walk in and blast away. You can even be stacking holds for damage and more mag on big targets like AVs, and keep them locked down during vulnerable windows. Don't get me wrong - I love RI. I felt the particular synergies of multiple Rads was worth calling attention to. You will probably not really ever need to use RI with this group. This is true of any support power set to a degree, but Rad has that special grab bag of easy/quick to apply, universally helpful debuffs, along with stacking AM to make it a very simple and powerful super team machine.

Thank you for catching that! I have much less scrapper experience than tank, so had it a bit in mind that Scrapper = no taunt aura. In that case, I actually think I would edge towards Scrapper for any armor set that includes a taunt aura. I suppose the common element between these powers (invincibility, evolving armor, against all odds) is that they are autohit and require enemies in range for their buffs to work. It makes a bit of sense that they would taunt even on scrapper - otherwise you would often get only marginal benefit from them as defensive powers.

Scrapper Pros: Scrappers have the most optimal version of claws altogether. Spin is especially a bit overtuned compared to similar pbaoes. Crits! Tanker Pros: Durability (obvious, I know!) More freedom in slotting/proccing attacks, as you have less need to shore up defenses. Most importantly - things don't run away constantly! I would love my little Claws/Fire scrapper if his alpha didn't cause mobs to flee to the winds. I suppose I could grab provoke, but a Tanker gets to hold them in place just by existing. Correction - there are a few Scrapper armor sets with actual taunt auras, and /Bio is one of them. Overall, I prefer tanker. If I were regularly teamed with a Tanker, scrapper might be better. Given that you are using a Scrapper secondary with a taunt aura, I think Scrapper is probably the stronger combo overall. Tankers still have the easy and high cap aoes, but Scrapper claws really is a swipe above the rest.

Because Burn actually has good proc chances for the initial power drop, and can be a regular part of both aoe and ST rotations. Auras have bad proc rates for this, and will not consistently apply to a single target.

I hadn't considered the context of invuln/ here. You're right - the proc would be much better in invincibility. For other primaries, I still think it's worth dropping the proc in Blood thirst, even if it is not as ideal as a regular build-up power.

Ninja has the right idea here! I do think blood thirst is useful though, even with it's longish animation. It's not only a good place for gaussian proc, but also wipes exhausted state and puts you at max stacks. This is very helpful for maintaining stacks after a spend, or doing back to back buffed flurries.

I have a dumb setting in mids that makes this happen and I still haven't examined why. I think your choices in the final build are very reasonable! I know everyone will always have their preferences. I think you'll be really pleased with the impact of the ato procs in your attack chain. Go out there and blow it all down!

That's a really good question! Honestly, the answer here is less about what you can get within the context of the current build, and more about where you could invest elsewhere if you examined some power choices, though I will highlight some pertinent elements that may inform your current build in some way. I did put together a build based on a few of my past storm builds. I preserved ranged softcap, and kept overall resistance numbers essentially the same, although I have appreciably more Fire/cold resist. S/L resist is just a hair lower (73.6). I'm sure this could be fixed with further tweaking if desired. There are a few overall philosophical differences here that are worth pointing out: I like Hurricane and you don't. You could easily sub it for any number of powers (Power Sink and Tactics stand out here). If you ever think to revisit it, remember that the debuff is fairly sticky! You don't have to hug and keep pushing things back. A kiss will do, and a good stormy can round it up without disrupting melee. I am not as invested in leadership. Tactics is less useful overall for storm, as FR is readily available even at low levels, and pretty much solved your team's ability to hit. I'm okay with some extra end management. You have gone for some proactive tools like Victory Rush. I personally prefer Conserve power over power sink, even though power sink is more of a total end solution. The reason here is that CP doesn't require you to hop in the middle of the mob with a long animation timer, and is easier to fit into your normal rotation when needed. Some slotting that may be worth examining and importing even if you don't like the build itself in its total form: The Soulbound allegiance buildup proc is really strong in Tornado. I have done something a bit different with BiB. Rather than just proccing it for damage, I have invested all of the Defender ATO procs here. In practice, this turns BiB into not only a strong DPA power (though a little lower damage than your slotting), but a very powerful heal and defensive power that you are constantly using. Both Defender ATO procs go off pretty much every single time you use it (Every ~4 seconds!) Hybrid slotting in Steamy mist to take advantage of additional exotic resists. I added in Ice blast as a later power in order to give you a busier attack chain. This is focused on pure procability, while Ice bolt is relegated to a bit of a mule, but a very usably slotted mule. Kismet is thrown in to help a bit with lower level accuracy blues, although it isn't super needed with Freezing Rain. I'm sure there is further iteration to do here! You'll have great fun with your Storm Defender either way. Here is the build:

One final note - you mentioned some concern about minimal gaps in your chain. Storm is a super busy set, and even in AV fights you will want to be throwing LS, freezing rain, and tornado on cooldown. You don't really need a 100% tight attack chain, as you will absolutely be spending frequent animation time on these powers.

Hi there Sovera! I've played about a bajillion iterations of Storm, and a few /Ice, so hopefully my insight here is useful. From a power choice perspective: I know it's not always choice #1 for today's team, but it is a real shame to miss out on hurricane. If anything, it is a super powerful tool to have as a fallback in chaotic situations. Worth noting that target caps don't really matter for Hurricane, as you can kiss every mob in the room. I don't typically take Snow Storm myself - I agree with your choice here! Your ice blasts slow plenty anyhow. The only utility I would nod to would be grounding fliers, which can be nice. I'm actually totally onboard with Gale. I really love gale, especially at lower levels. It is especially useful when you are actively "herdicaning" as well, although for that use, you would want it to knockback instead of KD. Typically I use it as a super hard shove into the corner so I can pile everything in one place. This is a bit more useful on Defenders than controllers, as we lack an aoe immob. I think your blast power choices look good overall. Personally, I would pick up Ice blast and proc it as well. This gives you a tighter attack chain. I would sacrifice victory rush, which is just a bit fiddly to use and not really needed, especially with Power Sink as a refill. I understand you have your own reasons for taking VR, and may just enjoy it. Slotting: Lightning storm has two KB to KD procs in it. Only one is needed. I really recommend putting the purple damage proc here - it works incredibly well in LS. It is also a bit of a waste to put the ATO +absorb proc in LS. I would rather see the Vigilant ATO's stay in threes, but split between two blast powers, with procs on top. This ATO procs a whole bunch, and will add a lot to your (and team's) survivability if you have it in your attack chain. It will only proc on summon for LS. If you are flying, I would really recommend using LS a bit as is before slotting a KB-KD. As long as you cast it high, you don't really need to convert it to KD, and can enhance the power further (ranged damage procs are great) or use a slot elsewhere. Speaking of purple ranged IOs, I know you are intentionally focused on baseline enhancement of BiB, but you could really crank the totals and buff your chain further with something like this instead: S. Winter's Bite Acc/Dam and Acc/Dam/End Decimation build-up proc Imp Swift smash proc Glad javelin tox proc Cloud senses Neg proc I would consider switching the lady gray for an Achilles proc in Tornado. With nados tick rate, it applies very consistently even to single targets. It's really weird to slot out Freezing rain with the full defender ATO set. Personally I would find a way to take Frost breath and put it there instead, but that may not be practical in this build. I'm not sure what I would do instead here, but I don't like it. The enhancement values are almost completely wasted (except recharge), and you are not getting any good use out of the very powerful ATO heal proc. My own personal style on a stormy is not to worry about hitting defense softcaps in any direction. I just get a modest amount of defense where I can, and let hurricane make up the difference (if it's even needed, depending on the team). I would encourage you to try to fly without the softcap seatbelt and give it a shot! Your build will be much more free to proc out and grab other powers if so. Hurricane is just such a super-powerful debuff that it seems sad to let it die on the vine. I totally get that it's not everyone's speed. I know these aren't exactly solutions or a total build, but perhaps this will give you some interesting ideas that may inform further iteration! If I feel inspired, I may put together a build of my own later and post it.

Shatter is the same .67 mag as everything else. I've used it on several characters. Are you sure you weren't testing on kb susceptible mobs like clockwork? Now I need to login and test to see if I am an idiot! Sometimes I'm an idiot. Edit: I am not an idiot. Shatter is indeed .67 mag. Using overwhelming force would have no affect on it at all.

They are all knockdown.

If you are aiming for primarily non-incarnate content, I think you're good to go! You have very healthy resist across the board underneath solid defense. Nicely done. Personally, I would probably swap the ToD set in Pulverize for the other Brute ATO set. You maintain similar melee defense, and it nudges that last little bit to S/L resist cap, alongside the extra perk of the fury proc. The extra slot in grant cover isn't really doing anything other than giving you a small regen bonus. I would steal a slot here, and from maneuvers as well (you can boost the set in maneuvers to make up the difference) and three slot zephyr in Super Jump to round out your positionals. With the travel power changes, SJ actually benefits from the enhancement too! I'm totally on board with recharge protection. If you want to steal a slot to keep the winter slow resistance, I'd grab it from weave and plus out the remaining IOs just like maneuvers. No harm in boosting the 47 and 50 power picks, as they will be within range for full bonus exemping anyhow. One final note - there is no need for KB to KD in Crowd control. I'm not really sure what Overwhelming Force is doing here for you. Crowd control is already knockdown. Slotting zephyr as I mentioned would already cover the paltry +ranged provided here. Something to consider here would be swapping it for 5 avalanche +Armageddon fire damage proc. The Arma proc is not well-utilized on Shield charge given its high proc rate. This would give you a strong melee defense buff. You could either take it and enjoy, or use that to offset swapping the sixth shatter IO for another damage proc (Fury -Resist is ideal here), or even siphoning some defense enhancement from deflection to use elsewhere as you please. The one slot Aegis in One with the Shield can be replaced with a fourth impervium for a wee bit more psi resist. If it were my build (it is not!), I'd probably drop the Imperviums for even a second set of zephyr to get aoe to softcap and boost ranged a bit as well.

I can appreciate your overall slotting philosophy as it applies to builds in a broader sense. I don't typically take proccing in my attack chain to such extremes outside of lower damage AT's. However, I see a somewhat unique opportunity in Fortunata/Widow here. The built-in tools of the class provide extreme defense baseline with very little effort, affording me flexibility to approach my attacks with a more free-form slotting philosophy. Note that I am not neglecting the baseline enhancement of these powers either. With my hybrid slotting, they are still near ED caps for damage, and even have healthy acc/end slotting as well. You can do some really interesting things with slot efficiency using the Purple damage and Dam/End IOs, HO's, and a select few Winter IOs. Recharge enhancement is made up for with global totals (including hasten). I'm not really concerned about ST affect on minions. Minions get blown away by aoes very quickly in any case. The unique and purposeful goal I am pursuing here is 100% as much damage in the most efficient ST chain possible. I am not saying this is required for a good Fortunata, but it is a goal I am focused on here. I actually agree with you on Aim for the Gaussian proc. However, I am running it in my leadership toggle for a few reasons: What you stated - it is actually really strong on teams with constant proccing. I'm just a little bored of always slotting it in aim and want to mix it up. Gaussian requires no animation time investment when slotted in leadership. I will gain passive benefit with no attention paid.

Have you taken a look at the damage numbers involved here? Adding two damage procs to aura of confusion turns it into a 129 damage power every ~70 seconds. That is low damage value over time for the slots invested and sacrifice taken. I do understand how the confuse mechanic works. I am simply stating that sacrificing the purple set bonuses is not sensible for me just to pick up what is almost half a spin's worth of damage for every 18 spins I can throw out. If I did not care about the +recharge set bonus, and had already achieved perma-hasten and comfortable pad time on Perma-Link, this would be a different story. I'm all for throwing in extra procs if goals are achieved. As a comparison, let's take a look at lunge, the power that would actually sacrifice the least from swapping back to more traditional slotting, as it has the highest base damage. In my current proccy version, lunge does 665 damage. If I were to change this to a 5 slot Hecatomb instead with a sixth slot taken for proc it does 523 damage. Even if I did this, there is only one purple melee set to slot! I could put the ranged purple set in dominate, but the difference is even proportionally bigger here. Dominate does 392 damage as is. With 5 slot purple +hold proc it does 279 damage. The difference is even more stark with my other attacks. As originally stated, one of the primary goals of this build is to stuff as much damage into the most optimal attack chain powers as possible. This means I want my best DPA attacks (namely my ST melee attacks and dominate) to do as much damage as absolutely possible. I don't envision Aura of confusion as some sort of amazing all the time useful power. I intend on using both it and Total domination as either back to back lockdown in dire situations or breathing periods if and when my defenses become debuffed. Ultimately, my question is whether it is worth keeping that, along with the extra +recharge that slotting these powers provides, or going for an epic AOE to round out my regular AOE chain.

I'm with you on this one, Scottocamp. I'm all for proccing things out, or piling procs onto attacks that aren't otherwise serving a specific set bonus purpose. Aura of Confusion, however, provides minimal value as a damage power, even procced out. It holds two procs, and even with my healthy recharge in this build, is still up only every 70 seconds. I don't place much value in two damage procs going off every minute or so versus bonuses that will serve the overall build. I'll take Tidge up on their enthusiasm for Confuse and give it a whirl as I level up! Maybe I'll just do a swap with that and aura. It's primarily about the set bonus here, either power will fit just fine. I agree on Gloom as well. It is a really excellent attack, but in my particular situation would only really serve to form a more complete ranged attack chain. I have focused on the melee attacks in this build. It's actually a pretty fun playstyle! Bamf around with combat teleport slicing things up, tossing out psychic aoes as I see fit. Dominate hits at the end of my chain, or serves as a really great "stop the runner" power. If Dominate doesn't finish them off, they are held in place for a quick teleport and slice to the face. It does seem that the majority of Fortunatas choose to go with a fourth aoe, whether they are melee or ranged oriented. I'll just see how the flow feels just cycling my three aoes given the recharge in this build - I can always respec into some nice epic aoes if I truly feel the lack. Thank you both for your thoughtful replies!

On this note, I was taught an important lesson in another thread recently. Boosting lotg +global recharge does indeed limit the global bonus's ability to exemplar with you. Unless the power is chosen near 50, I would stick with attuned for this particular IO. I had been under the opposite impression, given the way some other unique enhancements work, but was wrong!

Thank you for taking the time to reply, Tidge. Are you sure you're looking at the right build? I don't slot rectified reticle in Mind Link. I am slotting: Adjusted targeting - Recharge Luck of the Gambler +global recharge Reactive Defense Def/Recharge Reactive defense def/end/recharge The recharge enhancement is capped here. The shield wall set bonus isn't especially interesting to me, and reactive defense at least gives me some sort of not ignorable set bonus for only two pieces involved. I could put the lotg +rech global elsewhere, but it would take an extra slot in any event. I may as well place it in the power where it provides the best return on defense totals. As for the single target confuse, I don't currently have it in my build. I am not so committed to the confuse mechanic that I want both the ST and aoe confuse. Here it is just a sort of incidentally useful power that is giving me some nice IO bonuses. I am reserving my real attacks for optimized damage/proc slotting, so I have fewer places to otherwise insert purple set bonuses. Total domination serves much the same purpose - nice IO bonuses (most importantly the purple 10% rech) and a fallback, fast-animation, reliable fight reset if my defenses get overwhelmed. Both of them affect bosses, will apply reliably, have good sized aoes, and are fast animating. I can cycle them for good uptime if needed against enemy types that are otherwise giving me issues. It would not affect my build at all really to switch aura of confusion with confuse. I'll play with it and see what I think when I get there!

I have an alternate build I am considering where I drop Soul mastery entirely in favor of some extra recharge and general utility. Between Psionic Tornado, Spin, and Psychic Wail, I'm not exactly deficient in aoes. Dark Oblit would give me closer to a seamless chain, but is it worth it? Gloom doesn't seem like it would get much use, as it doesn't mesh well with claws redraw given how much I would potentially be cycling it in. I'm a bit torn! I'd love the advice of experienced Fortunata players to understand how much you value that extra bit of aoe power, whether in the form of psy scream or dark oblit. Here is the alternate build, which drops Soul Mastery, but picks up Total domination for bonuses and general fun, and shifts slots to Aura of Confusion. I picked up TT: Assault as a solid one slot wonder in this iteration. I sort of like the idea of sacrificing just a bit of aoe damage optimization for the full controllery fallbacks. I have two really solid large aoe controls that will even affect bosses with the included procs, and I can rotate them as needed. I also dropped the full 6 slot for Spider's bite and re-optimized a bit, as the set bonuses aren't really amazing for the purposes here.