Returning player with dumb questions...

[r0adkill76]

So I loaded up COH after a couple years down time. Glad to see its still here. 

 

Anyway, the last few weeks I have been goofing around with all my toons, figuring out what I want to play, and man I don't remember making most of these things....  I happened upon a defender with Lightning Storm.... okay that is too much fun, how do I build a defender to maximize the storm primary?  What 2nd ?  What builds... wow it is fun...  (did not remember any of this) 

 

thanks in advance, I want to have one of each, so its time to build a 'fender. (No Les Paul jokes plz)

 

 

Edited March 6, 2023 by r0adkill76

[Renatos1023]

I don't have a Storm build to share (others here are much better with that) with you but can give you my opinion on secondaries and how I shaped my defender.

 

I think /Ice and /Water, are good fits thematically. /Ice is a single target beast and provides decent mitigation with all the slow and recharge debuffs, plus it has 2 single target holds (although I skip Bitter Freeze Ray due to long animation). You also get Ice Storm and Blizzard to stack with Freezing Rain. /Water would give you better AoE damage and a self heal, along with some small defense debuffs. /Elec would also work thematically, but I am just not a fan of the set and I think its -end/recovery debuff is not as useful as the debuffs in Ice or Water. If you want straight damage /Fire is your best bet, no debuffs there though - secondary effect is just more damage (I have a Fire/Storm Corr who is pretty fun to play).

 

In terms of building your primary, you'll want to focus on recharge because you want to have Freezing Rain up every mob and get Lightning Storm and Tornado up as often as possible too. I always slot the Knockback --> Knockdown IO in both Gale and Tornado, making them much more team-friendly. Rather than scattering everything everywhere, mobs just fall right on their butts. When I play a Stormie I typically take everything but Snow Storm and Thunderclap. 02 Boost can also be dropped, but sometimes it can come in handy and if I have the power slots I try to fit it in. Hurricane is a very good situational power with a huge -to-hit debuff and it also repels nearby mobs - a nice power to create a safe zone for a squishie that has over-aggroed. You can also use it to quickly touch a mob and then back away, as the debuff will stick around for 10 seconds (I'm pretty sure) after the mob is outside of the radius.

 

I find that my Stormies burn through a lot of endurance - in pretty much all of my characters I slot a Performance Shifter +End in Stamina plus another Endurance Mod enhancement; then a Numina's Convalescence +Regen/+Recovery and a Miracle +Recovery into Health. Dark, Flame, and Electric Mastery all have endurance replenishing powers if you feel you need that once you get into the upper levels. Incarnates can also be used to fill any other gaps you may want filled.

[biostem]

On 3/6/2023 at 6:10 PM, r0adkill76 said:

how do I build a defender to maximize the storm primary?

Consider this - Storm Summoning mainly focuses on debuffs and damage.  It lacks a self-heal, so you may want a blast set that provides that, meaning dark blast or water blast.  Of the 2, I think dark blast provides additional debuffs, (which are the strongest on defenders), a self heal, and even a hold.  Water blast would probably yield better damage, and if you;re going for a storm-summoner e, may fit better.  If the self heal isn't that important to you, then ice blast is a solid choice, with great hard and soft controls, and some great AoE, while elec blast may fight thematically with your emphasis on litghning storm.