Storm/Rad Defender?

Clave Dark 5 · February 21, 2020

Out of a bout of randomness, I made a Storm/Radiation Defender, stepped out of the tutorial and then logged off. Looking around now, even on the old Live forums, it appears no one in the history of forever has ever posted a potential build for such a 'fender, and it's rarely even mentioned. Did a Storm/Rad kill someone's family? Is it really that bad a combo? I'm generally of the mind that just about any combo is playable, but there's obviously some reason for this. Can someone explain why this is a shunned combo?

I mean, it's not so late that I can't reroll this toon, right?

nihilii · February 21, 2020

Both Storm/ and /Rad used to not be that great. Well, I might catch some flak for that, so let's rephrase it: some of the latest issue changes as well as HC improvements make both Storm/ and /Rad significantly better than they used to be, which might explain the silence on old Live forums.

On the Storm side you can stuff KB to KD procs as well as turn Tornado and LS into extreme damage powers with procs.

On the Rad side you've got fast snipes, crashless nukes and loads of options for procs in your attacks.

I don't see any particular reason for the combo to be shunned. Properly built, it should be a powerhouse.

Clave Dark 5 · February 21, 2020

It's funny, because I was just looking up the "flavor of the month" posts and Radiation Blast was the number one choice for Defenders. C-could it be the intelligentsia build gurus have lead me astray? 🙂

Darkir · February 21, 2020

Just now, Clave Dark 5 said:

It's funny, because I was just looking up the "flavor of the month" posts and Radiation Blast was the number one choice for Defenders. C-could it be the intelligentsia build gurus have lead me astray? 🙂

Anything can work and rad is nice for its AOEs. I'd still use water blast over rad blast for the heal though, but like everything else in this game now, it can be built into a god with IOs and incarnates.

Uun · February 21, 2020

I had a Storm/Rad back on live that I played from 2005 until shutdown. Absolutely loved the combo, but I haven't recreated it on HC. I might have a build saved somewhere, but it's probably way out of date.

Without_Pause · February 21, 2020

One con for the combo is having Hurricane on and trying to use the PBAoE attack.

Uun · February 21, 2020

1 hour ago, Without_Pause said:

One con for the combo is having Hurricane on and trying to use the PBAoE attack.

Correct, but working around it isn't that difficult as hurricane can be toggled off and back on pretty quickly. I generally don't keep hurricane up full time anyway.

Clave Dark 5 · February 23, 2020

On 2/21/2020 at 1:39 PM, Uun said:

Correct, but working around it isn't that difficult as hurricane can be toggled off and back on pretty quickly. I generally don't keep hurricane up full time anyway.

That's what I'm finding with it, it's good to give it a rest sometime to help my End, and to take a break from the sound effect. Still learning my way round using it to corner foes too.

Doomguide2005 · February 23, 2020

I think the other older knock would be the secondary effect of the blasts, i.e.- def which wasn't all that useful. Players built to reliably hit stuff and procs didn't work the same either (though turning the tier 1 blast into a little proc cannon of death existed).

PS: Somewhat heretical I know but most of my Storms rarely used/use Hurricane but rather stunned mobs by stacking stuns. Hurricane is a potent tool but I've got too much altitis to get the time in to get the skill needed to use it as it should be used. Stunning mobs works much better for me in general.

Frosticus · February 24, 2020

it can work well. cosmic burst is a really nice stun attack. fast snipes are all good.

rad blast can take a lot of really good procs.

storm is of course storm, which is to say, an offensive powerhouse.

Clave Dark 5 · February 24, 2020

2 hours ago, Doomguide2005 said:

I think the other older knock would be the secondary effect of the blasts, i.e.- def which wasn't all that useful. Players built to reliably hit stuff and procs didn't work the same either (though turning the tier 1 blast into a little proc cannon of death existed).

PS: Somewhat heretical I know but most of my Storms rarely used/use Hurricane but rather stunned mobs by stacking stuns. Hurricane is a potent tool but I've got too much altitis to get the time in to get the skill needed to use it as it should be used. Stunning mobs works much better for me in general.

This is my first stormie of any sort so I just have to take Hurricane; I've already found that it has it's uses, such as blocking a doorway to keep foes bunched up and not slipping past to annoy my friends, and that it draws friends close who want to stay safe from melee as they plink away at the bad guys. Those two things right there make me feel like a Defender with a capital D.

I was half thinking about that tier one blast as a proc canon, but it recharges so fast right out of the box I was afraid that would hamper the proc rate. Currently cobbling up a build from a proc monster storm/sonic (I think it was) posted over in that thread, so we'll see how it goes.

Doomguide2005 · February 24, 2020

Nod, All my Storms have Hurricane and have slotted it for use. And I will turn it on to block a choke point or pin an already clumped mob into a corner. But it takes a whole other level of skill to herd a ×8 mob up against a wall while keeping them bunched together.

Clave Dark 5 · February 24, 2020

That's what I;m discovering. I tend to stick with a toon for a long enough time to get fairly comfy with it, so maybe by the time I ding 50 I'll be able to do that.

(Stupid forum formatting down here, dunno how to get rid of these. IGNORE ME!)

7 minutes ago, Doomguide2005 said:

Quote

7 minutes ago, Doomguide2005 said:

Sailboat · February 24, 2020

A Sudden Acceleration kb->kd proc in Hurricane will remove the knockback, but not the repel, and when things are knocked down repel will toss them a little bit. Still, it removes much of the unpredictable scatter from 'Cane. If you invest in to-hit debuff, Hurricane becomes a fairly effective debuff for team use and and an absolutely dominant tool for soloing. It might take a bit to defeat foes since you're a Defender, but my Storm Defender is effectively fearless against anything but AVs (and their EB forms, which seem to retain the debuff resistance of full AVs).

It's a particularly amusing tool against Cimerorans, who cumulatively debuff defense into the negative, and would maim a lot of defense-based builds, but they still can't hit through Hurricane's debuff.

Edited February 24, 2020 by Sailboat

Clave Dark 5 · February 25, 2020

8 hours ago, Sailboat said:

A Sudden Acceleration kb->kd proc in Hurricane will remove the knockback, but not the repel, and when things are knocked down repel will toss them a little bit. Still, it removes much of the unpredictable scatter from 'Cane. If you invest in to-hit debuff, Hurricane becomes a fairly effective debuff for team use and and an absolutely dominant tool for soloing. It might take a bit to defeat foes since you're a Defender, but my Storm Defender is effectively fearless against anything but AVs (and their EB forms, which seem to retain the debuff resistance of full AVs).

It's a particularly amusing tool against Cimerorans, who cumulatively debuff defense into the negative, and would maim a lot of defense-based builds, but they still can't hit through Hurricane's debuff.

Noted and going into the build, thanks. 🙂

Clave Dark 5 · February 25, 2020

Another question to anyone who's still reading: if I had to cut one (which my build-in-progress seems to be indicating I do), which one would be less of a loss, Freezing Rain or Snow Storm?

Sailboat · February 25, 2020

Snow Storm is a serviceable debuff, and it's auto-hit, useful against things that resist holds or stuns, brings down flyers. But it's not vital.

Freezing Rain, on the other hand, is routinely mentioned in rankings of the best debuffs in the game. It's an absolute keeper for any Storm.

Doomguide2005 · February 26, 2020

What Sailboat said! Freezing Rain is a must have (or at least as close as anything this very flexible and forgiving game has as a 'must'😁)

$oedipus_tex$ · February 27, 2020

Did someone somewhere along the way speed up the animation of Neutron Bomb? I swear it used to be over 2 seconds but Mids reports 1.67 seconds which, while not great, isn't terrible. (For terrible, see some of the Dominator AoEs).

Clave Dark 5 · February 27, 2020

Couldn't tell you, this is my first Rad. I don't know if it's the same animation and time as Force Field's Repulsion Bomb, but one of my MMs had that and it never felt like it was taking forever to animate (can't say the same for Electron Haze, if that's the one I'm thinking of; I feel like I corpse blast a lot with that one

Clave Dark 5 · February 27, 2020

Here's another question for you guys: looking at both Storm's Hurricane and Radiation's Irradiate, the "range" of them both is given (at least on Titan's wiki) as "point blank. Question is, if I've got some foe's at arm's length away from my with a Hurricane, will Irradiate still hit , or is that too far for it to reach?

Darkir · February 27, 2020

3 hours ago, Clave Dark 5 said:

Here's another question for you guys: looking at both Storm's Hurricane and Radiation's Irradiate, the "range" of them both is given (at least on Titan's wiki) as "point blank. Question is, if I've got some foe's at arm's length away from my with a Hurricane, will Irradiate still hit , or is that too far for it to reach?

Irradiate will not hit if the mob is at the max repel of hurricane according to mids and I have no reason to doubt it. I would skip hurricane, its repel effect make it much less desirable even after a knockback to knockdown IO.

Clave Dark 5 · February 27, 2020

15 minutes ago, Darkir said:

Irradiate will not hit if the mob is at the max repel of hurricane according to mids and I have no reason to doubt it. I would skip hurricane, its repel effect make it much less desirable even after a knockback to knockdown IO.

I've had it on the toon enough to fiddle with it some and I like the panic button nature of it, and I normally hate panic button powers. OTOH, Irradiate seems like nothing but a panic button, because what, my squishie is going to be running into the middle of a crowd on purpose or sidling up next to that AV for fun? My play style sez take hurricane! Electron Haze is more my speed.

Thanks for the info though, that does help me solidify my choices.

Edited February 27, 2020 by Clave Dark 5

Darkir · February 27, 2020

1 hour ago, Clave Dark 5 said:

OTOH, Irradiate seems like nothing but a panic button, because what, my squishie is going to be running into the middle of a crowd on purpose or sidling up next to that AV for fun?

It's not terribly difficult to make a defender incredibly tanky. For storm/rad, the reason you would want to go into melee range is for atomic blast and irradiate, both of which have fantastic dpa and can apply the -20% res Achilles proc in a pbaoe. You can also soul drain and at just 5 targets that is an 80% dmg buff. So, you could run up, soul drain>aim>lightning storm>tornado>atomic blast or some variation of that and pretty much destroy everything except for +3/4 bosses. Aim with gaussians and soul drain should cap your damage, so that is a ton of damage coming out of your lightning storm and tornado.

I made an example build to highlight this. It has ranged and melee defense softcapped, perma hasten with the FF procs, perma soul drain with the FF procs, s/l res is at 73.4% (1.6% from cap), lightning storm should be endurance neutral giving the cast time and the endurance proc, and you should be able to apply a ton of -res to groups with double stacking freezing rain and achilles procs (plus gladiators in soul drain, but only 5 seconds out of 30ish).

Spoiler

Hero Plan by Mids' Reborn : Hero Designer 2.6.0.7
https://github.com/ImaginaryDevelopment/imaginary-hero-designer

Click this DataLink to open the build!

Level 50 Science Defender
Primary Power Set: Storm Summoning
Secondary Power Set: Radiation Blast
Power Pool: Leadership
Power Pool: Fighting
Power Pool: Leaping
Power Pool: Speed
Ancillary Pool: Dark Mastery

Hero Profile:
Level 1: O2 Boost -- Prv-Absorb%(A)
Level 1: Neutrino Bolt -- Thn-Acc/Dmg(A), Thn-Dmg/EndRdx(3), Thn-Dmg/Rchg(3), Thn-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(5), Thn-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(5), Thn-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(7)
Level 2: Snow Storm -- Empty(A)
Level 4: Irradiate -- Obl-Dmg(A), Obl-Dmg/Rchg(13), Obl-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(13), Obl-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(25), Obl-%Dam(40), AchHee-ResDeb%(40)
Level 6: Steamy Mist -- LucoftheG-Def/EndRdx(A), LucoftheG-Def/EndRdx/Rchg(7), LucoftheG-Def/Rchg+(21), ShlWal-ResDam/Re TP(43), Ksm-ToHit+(46)
Level 8: Freezing Rain -- SprVglAss-Acc/Dmg(A), SprVglAss-Dmg/Rchg(42), SprVglAss-Rchg/+Absorb(43)
Level 10: Maneuvers -- LucoftheG-Def/EndRdx(A), LucoftheG-Def/EndRdx/Rchg(11), LucoftheG-Def/Rchg+(43)
Level 12: Boxing -- Empty(A)
Level 14: Tough -- UnbGrd-ResDam(A), UnbGrd-ResDam/EndRdx(15), UnbGrd-ResDam/EndRdx/Rchg(15), UnbGrd-EndRdx/Rchg(17), GldArm-3defTpProc(17)
Level 16: Proton Volley -- StnoftheM-Acc/Dmg(A), StnoftheM-Dmg/EndRdx(19), StnoftheM-Dmg/ActRdx/Rchg(21), StnoftheM-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(23), StnoftheM-Dam%(25)
Level 18: Weave -- LucoftheG-Def/EndRdx(A), LucoftheG-Def/EndRdx/Rchg(19), LucoftheG-Def/Rchg+(46)
Level 20: Aim -- GssSynFr--Build%(A)
Level 22: Combat Jumping -- LucoftheG-Def(A), LucoftheG-Def/Rchg+(23)
Level 24: Assault -- EndRdx-I(A)
Level 26: Tornado -- ExpRnf-Acc/Dmg(A), ExpRnf-Dmg/EndRdx(27), ExpRnf-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(27), ExpRnf-EndRdx/Dmg/Rchg(29), FrcFdb-Rechg%(29), SuddAcc--KB/+KD(31)
Level 28: Cosmic Burst -- SprDfnBst-Acc/Dmg(A), SprDfnBst-Dmg/Rchg(31), SprDfnBst-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(31), SprDfnBst-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(34), SprDfnBst-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(37), SprDfnBst-Rchg/Heal%(42)
Level 30: Hasten -- RechRdx-I(A)
Level 32: Lightning Storm -- SprVglAss-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(A), SprVglAss-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(33), SprVglAss-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(33), Apc-Dmg/EndRdx(33), PrfShf-End%(34), FrcFdb-Rechg%(34)
Level 35: Neutron Bomb -- Rgn-Dmg(A), Rgn-Dmg/Rchg(36), Rgn-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(36), Rgn-Dmg/EndRdx(36), Rgn-Knock%(37), AchHee-ResDeb%(37)
Level 38: Atomic Blast -- Arm-Dmg/Rchg(A), Arm-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(39), Arm-Acc/Rchg(39), Arm-Dmg/EndRdx(39), Arm-Dam%(40), AchHee-ResDeb%(42)
Level 41: Dark Consumption -- PrfShf-EndMod/Acc/Rchg(A)
Level 44: Dark Embrace -- UnbGrd-ResDam(A), UnbGrd-ResDam/EndRdx(45), UnbGrd-ResDam/EndRdx/Rchg(45), UnbGrd-Max HP%(45), StdPrt-ResDam/Def+(46)
Level 47: Soul Drain -- SprAvl-Dmg/EndRdx(A), SprAvl-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(48), SprAvl-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(48), SprAvl-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(48), SprAvl-Rchg/KDProc(50), FuroftheG-ResDeb%(50)
Level 49: Super Speed -- BlsoftheZ-Travel/EndRdx(A), BlsoftheZ-ResKB(50)
Level 1: Brawl -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Quick Form
Level 1: Prestige Power Dash -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Prestige Power Slide -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Prestige Power Quick -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Prestige Power Rush -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Prestige Power Surge -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Sprint -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Vigilance
Level 2: Rest -- Empty(A)
Level 4: Ninja Run
Level 2: Swift -- Empty(A)
Level 2: Health -- NmnCnv-Regen/Rcvry+(A), Pnc-Heal/+End(9), Mrc-Rcvry+(11)
Level 2: Hurdle -- Empty(A)
Level 2: Stamina -- PrfShf-EndMod(A), PrfShf-End%(9)
Level 50: Agility Core Paragon
Level 0: Freedom Phalanx Reserve
Level 0: Portal Jockey
Level 0: Task Force Commander
Level 0: The Atlas Medallion
------------

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Clave Dark 5 · February 27, 2020

Well damn, guess I know what my build is going to be when I hit 50. Thanks for that and pointing that out.

ETA; But hey, "can apply the -20% res Achilles proc in a pbaoe" you say. I haven't checked the numbers for this very proc, but I thought conventional wisdom said procs weren't terribly useful in area effect things and therefore not worth slotting there?

Edited February 27, 2020 by Clave Dark 5

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