Focused Feedback: Storm Blast

[Captain Fabulous]

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Edited April 17, 2023 by Captain Fabulous

[Wravis]

5 minutes ago, Captain Fabulous said:

The repel is fine. Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it's not useful or shouldn't be there. If it bugs you so much make sure Storm Cell is down first (there any many reasons why you would want to do this anyway).

"Be sure to use Storm Cell first to make this power not suck"
or just make the power not suck to begin with.

[High_Beam]

2 hours ago, Wravis said:

When the whole playerbase  (except for contrarians) dislikes something it's probably not a good thing to keep in the game.

Okay whole player base.

[Captain Fabulous]

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Edited April 17, 2023 by Captain Fabulous

[Lazarillo]

25 minutes ago, Captain Fabulous said:

OMG all you people bitching and moaning about the repel need to stop. GO PLAY IT BEFORE YOU COMPLAIN.

Storm Cell follows you around like Carrion Creepers. It doesn't need a shorter duration or recharge. It works fine. You would know this IF YOU ACTUALLY PLAYED THE SET.

That just feels like a whole other issue. If it moves on its own, you don't have control of how/whether enemies end up inside it.

 

Which is fine on a power like Creepers, but I wonder a bit when it's the main gimmick power on a set that revolves around a gimmick. 

[ScarySai]

Think of it more like a rain power with movement for flavor's sake over something you're supposed to carry from pack to pack.

Edited April 6, 2023 by ScarySai

[WindDemon21]

1 minute ago, Captain Fabulous said:

And if you see the value of the repel, especially when soloing? Oh wait, I forgot, all powers must fit the meta and be tweaked and optimized for only ub3rl33t hard-mode players, where anything that drops your DPS by even a fraction of a % must be eradicated. 🤡

It's annoying it has to take up a slot for kb-kd to do this, but I'm fine since it takes sudden acceleration and not limited to just OF. I wish all power that need/use a kb/kd were just given a 7th slot that only takes that.

[jojogladco]

Played this for several hours across Storm/TA, Storm/Atomic Blaster.  Storm/Storm Corrupter and Defender. Loved it.  The animations feel powerful and there is a visceral satisfaction when Storm Cell and Cat Five start procing off bolts from your attacks and just melt spawns.  This is one of the only sets that I find fun to play with 0 procs in the attacks, just straight sets slotted. 

[Lazarillo]

21 minutes ago, ScarySai said:

Think of it more like a rain power with movement for flavor's sake over something you're supposed to carry from pack to pack.

Your not supposed to keep up the power the whole set is based around?

[Wravis]

20 minutes ago, High_Beam said:

Okay whole player base.

You're right. Too hyperbolic.

The majority of players*

 

 

20 minutes ago, Captain Fabulous said:

And if you see the value of the repel, especially when soloing? Oh wait, I forgot, all powers must fit the meta and be tweaked and optimized for only ub3rl33t hard-mode players, where anything that drops your DPS by even a fraction of a % must be eradicated. 🤡

What are you even talking about?

It's not about numbers. It's about a mechanic that inconveniences every other player on your team when you use it.

It's about not making melee players have to chase an enemy you threw across the room. It's about not making every kinetics ability miss everyone because you threw their target across the room. Not throwing enemies outside of a Faraday Cage where it's safer. It's about not making every power that gets a bonus for the amount of enemies in its radius less powerful.

The game is designed for enemies to cluster up. Repel does the opposite.
 

[ScarySai]

2 minutes ago, Lazarillo said:

Your not supposed to keep up the power the whole set is based around?

 

You should prioritize replacing it over dragging it through the entire mission. Play with it a little, you'll get used to it.

[Lazarillo]

2 minutes ago, ScarySai said:

You should prioritize replacing it over dragging it through the entire mission. Play with it a little, you'll get used to it.

I mean, I agree on that first point.  That's why I don't see why it shouldn't be a Faraday Cage sort of thing with a no-stacking recharge, that doesn't move.  It can be placed as needed, when needed, and without having to be overly concerned about janky AI movement choices or an unusably-long Recharge power.

 

Rain powers are fine when they're just rain powers.  But this is set-critical.  Imagine if Super Reflexes changed Practiced Brawler so that its effect was provided by an invisible FFG.  You could, but why, when there's a much less janky solution?

Edited April 6, 2023 by Lazarillo

[Dispari]

54 minutes ago, Captain Fabulous said:

Except they've admitted they haven't.

I've certainly played a lot of it before it even landed on this server, and more here, and I have always disliked both the repel and Storm Cell having a long recharge while the set revolves around it. Yes it follows you around like Creepers -- IE too slowly. And the set overall doesn't feel very coherent or good in the way most sets are actually played. But I've outlined my actual criticisms and don't have any reason to argue with anybody over them.

[Seed22]

1 hour ago, Captain Fabulous said:

Except they've admitted they haven't.

I've played this set before it even hit y'alls open beta.

 

Honestly, it wasn't the WORST power, but im not gonna sit here and foam at the mouth over it. I don't know of any real way to have it keep up with zerg teams, but then again even on my Plant/Fire dom, keeping up with zerg teams can be hard! I like Storm Cell, love the rain effects, and find it viable in combat and from an RP perspective oddly enough, but leveling it will(or would in my case. I'm just gonna PL the thing.) be...difficult, to get the most out of. Same with Jet Stream. Personally, though, the latter can be skipped thanks to Chain Lightning being so spammable later on, and fun to use!

 

 

[Captain Fabulous]

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Edited April 17, 2023 by Captain Fabulous

[Gobbledigook]

27 minutes ago, ScarySai said:

 Play with it a little, you'll get used to it.

That was the advice i was given when i was young anyway 🙂

[Captain Fabulous]

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Edited April 17, 2023 by Captain Fabulous

[Wravis]

The one thing that feels off visually is Chain Lightning.

Why are we creating all these clouds and storms that drop the damage down from the sky, then randomly creating a ball of lightning in our hands then chucking it up for a free throw? Make it come from the sky, or outward as a bolt, like the chain lightning from electric control

[UltraAlt]

21 hours ago, The Curator said:

New primary for Blasters, Corruptors, and Sentinels. New secondary for Defenders.

Storm Blast conjures violent weather to attack your foes. The use of your storm attacks will empower your created storm cells.

 

I made a Blaster - Storm Blast/Martial Arts and a Defender - Storm Summing/Storm Blast.

 

First take is that some teams won't like other characters on the team because of the knockback and that the set has a power that is fixed to a location so the set will be to slow for bulldozer teams. (I see other people say that the storm cell moves around. I didn't notice that occuring, but I was trying to fight in fixed locations.)

Neither of these are negatives from my viewpoint, but I can see that others will.

 

Blaster - Storm Blast/Martial Arts

I feel that Ki Push is pretty strong and I rely on knockback when I run a blaster. Set seemed balanced enough, but only ran one mission at level 20 and I think it was on flat because I forgot to kick up the level on it before I went into the mission.

 

Defender - Storm Summing/Storm Blast

Having two cone wind blast-like powers (Gale and Jet Stream) made it easy for me to keep opponents at range I had to backup and figure out how to coordinate the use of powers, but, running a level 20 mission at +2 with SOs and a couple of IOs (no set bonuses), this combo seemed to be a bit OP. I was only really threatened when I was getting a grip on getting the sets to work together or when I was caught by surprised by a more difficult opponent (a purple boss or a Scorcher that had time to spawn monkeys). Once I knew what I was dealing with I was able to catch them in a corner with hurricane, keep them down with the two wind blasts, drop Freezing rain and storm cell, and then it was just a matter of keeping them in the affected area and blasting away at them. The real challenge was not running out of end and not knocking them into a location in shelving where I had to find an angle where I could hit them.

Edited April 6, 2023 by UltraAlt

[ScarySai]

I think it looked better when the ball went up and lightning just struck your target from above shortly after and chained from there. If I were to nitpick, the ball coming down is ever so slightly less cool looking.

[UltraAlt]

17 hours ago, WindDemon21 said:

I get that, and i'm telling you, ANY case where it *could* repel, is bad in an aoe attack.

 

for you, but not for everyone else.

There are plenty of us that like repel in powersets. 
it is a different mechanic and the game is interesting when there are more mechanics to know how to use.

 

if you won't want to use repel, great. Pick another power set.

the rest of us shouldn't be denied repel simply because you don't like it.

 

17 hours ago, WindDemon21 said:

Even "a few moments" is bad as its going to mess up the mob placement.

 

what to you mean?

it's great for cornering mobs and holding them in place for AoE attacks and area attacks like Freezing Rain or Storm Cell.

 

Are you looking at this from a level 50 bulldozer team mentality?

 

18 hours ago, WindDemon21 said:

but in no way should an aoe attack have repel, ever.

 

I think there are plenty of us that will like the uniqueness of this.

We will learn how to use the powers in the set.

Everything shouldn't be cookie-cutter.

The fun for me is learning how to use a set and not wanting everything to play the same.

[UltraAlt]

1 hour ago, Lazarillo said:

Your not supposed to keep up the power the whole set is based around?

 

I think it's kind of like domination. You can probably perma storm cell if you really try, but that isn't really the intent of either.

[WindDemon21]

20 minutes ago, ScarySai said:

 

You should prioritize replacing it over dragging it through the entire mission. Play with it a little, you'll get used to it.

Which is EXACTLY why I suggested to instead lower its recharge down to 30 seconds and make it work like glue arrow so you control where it is on command. It's that simple, it doens't need to follow around and remove that option. I got on to the test server finally and I stand by everything I've said up until now.

 

Likewise as its effects create the strikes that cause knockback, also means you have to slot a kb-kd in the power itself as well (which woudl be nice if the effects caused knockdown instead.

 

The effects are also really hard to see even when soloing, but regarding above storm cell should definitely have a 30s recharge and replace itself like glue arrow works. Maybe small staticky effects on the ground could make it easier to see where it is also.

 

Regarding the snipe, YES I love it, can't continue without giving kudos to that animation.

 

Regarding the nuke, It still seems like it's drawn out way too much for something that should be an actual nuke, especially with the set having/working on aim. The set should r eally have a different power than aim, something that should last those 30 seconds. It already provides less of a damage boost than regular aims, it shoudl last longer to last throughout the nuke, even with less to hit i'd still be ok with that, as long as it lasted longer.

 

Cloudburst's animation also seems really off for the power, it's just ported over water ball from water blast, and it, just feels really odd. I guess I won't fully comlain casue at least the power itself is ok, but, maybe give an alternate animation like that of gravity's distorition field woudl make more sense for the power.

 

Likewise Hailstones also feels kinda odd for a single target attack, but I can live with it enough, animation is good, but it doesnt reall make sense on a ST power.

 

And back to the cone with repel, I'm still not a fan of the repel, but as long as the SA KB-KD works on it, then i'm fine with that.

 

Of all these things though, storm cell definitely needs fixed. And yes as stated, I'm on  test now testing it. It should be 30s rech glue arrow, and it needs it's cast time reduced to 1s or 1.5s with the radiation infection animation perhaps, since you'll be placing it a lot more (and end cost reduced to 8ish as well)

 

Also on chain lightning, it really feels like it should be doing knockdown as well. It's basically a "cast at will lightning storm" which does knockdown, seems to make sense this would too.

[WindDemon21]

I'm also noticing that it kinda feels like the animation/effects of cloudburst and hailstones shoudl be swapped. the rain cloud seems like it should do less damage and the localized ice storm seeems like it should do more. I'd swap hailstones and cloudburst (with appropriate rech/damage values of course swapped as well)

[UltraAlt]

4 minutes ago, WindDemon21 said:

Likewise as its effects create the strikes that cause knockback, also means you have to slot a kb-kd in the power itself as well (which woudl be nice if the effects caused knockdown instead.

 

or you can just learn how to use knockback to your advantage which is the whole point of sets that are knockback intensive.

Knockback is a short duration hold. The enemy can't attack when they are knocked-back or knocked down..

 

Seriously, I have run plenty of teams where we were knockback intensive and the players on the team were having plenty of fun.