Focused Feedback: Storm Blast

[WindDemon21]

54 minutes ago, Heatstroke said:

Why doesnt Storm Blast have a power like Chained Fences that could be a cone with an AoE immobilize? That would help do damage AND help keep some foes locked down in an area. 

 

Or how about... the singularity pull in to the center of it :)))))) (or this at past makes sense for cat5)

 

(Though really still bringing up how tornado in storm summoning especially, and water spout should have this too)

 

I really wish their was a way to do NEGATIVE knockback which would mean the knockback would go in the opposite direction (think bonfire but knocking in to the center instead of away from it)

[WindDemon21]

51 minutes ago, Heatstroke said:

Just tried on the test server after the update.. 

 

The reduced recharge makes a huge difference. However the End Cost is murderous. 

Yeah im THRILLED for a reduced recharge on it but i said from the beginning that needs to come with reduced end cost.

 

Like costing even just 2 end or nonr at all would make sense since it's only cast as a set up power and it costs end of your own attacks to make it actually do anything.

[WindDemon21]

6 hours ago, Puma said:

Edit:  It looks like Storm Cell's base accuracy was bumped to 1.64 with this patch.   That should help with the defense concerns at higher levels.  It has a shorter recharge, but still costs 15 end each time you cast it, the same as Ice storm and other rain powers, which do higher percent debuffing out of the box and do damage on their own. 

Can we get some clarity and update on this. I do see the power actually shows as 1.00 base acc which doens't matter as the "power" itself is the field, but the procs are boosted to 1.68base accuracy. Which GREAT! fantatsic. Only problem is, the accuracy slotted into the power is not boosting  the accuracy OF those procs:

 

What is slotted on mine was a quick slot and just afew curtailed speeds. But that is still 53% accuracy into the power. Now ignoring the COMPLETELY dumb issue of sets going only to the individual procs that take those sets (which again, at LEAST do the quick fix  by adding 1% of the procs effects to the other one and vice versa), but even that curtailed speed's accuracy slotting isn't boosting the accuracy of the high winds, so something is definitely wrong there with the enhancements.

 

Also, Category 5 seems to be not updated with the boosted accuracy either. it does say the "rain" main power was boosted to 2.00x accuracy, but the lightning power is not updated and still only has 1.1x accuracy. Fyi, i took out all enhancements and just fought level 50 cot to test this. I'm not sure what the "eye wall" is versus the main power, but the actual proc that matters is the lighting power, and that's base accuracy still needs boosted up. The -recovery on the lightning also is missing it's duration.

 

And then of course, lower the end cost on storm cell (or remove it), and fix the janky way IO sets work in the powers, give a small but noticeable ring on the edge of storm cell (like arctic air/fog), and the set will be good to go!

 

And still feel like cloudburst and hailstones should be swapped or more oomph added to cloudburst and make the cloud at least appear over the head of the target instantly and change out that whirlywater animation but that part is personal preference but i feel like others might share it, especially if the cloud instantly appears over their head.

 

Edit: And remove the proc lockout even at lower proc chances to even them out. Also, another thing to help with storm cell, is if they could be "debuffed" by the storm cell for x amount of seconds like glue arrow does, but i'm not sure that would work with storm cell as it's "effect" is the pet being on them to proc right? Also I'm noticing that it seems like only the human forms (and i think those cot behemoths) are showing that "dripping" effect to let you know that they are in storm cell effects, but for example I wasn't seeing that on council robots or werewolves.

 

Edited April 20, 2023 by WindDemon21

[Captain Fabulous]

Any chance of getting the VFX adjusted so we can color the lightning differently than the wind/rain effects in Storm Cell and Cat 5? Pretty please?

[Bellicose]

Just reran the same tests I've been running. Baster (Storm/Temporal), Corruptor (Storm/Dark), Defender (Storm/Storm), and Sentinel (Storm/SR). Running the Trapdoor mission at +1/x8 (bosses enabled).

Overall, my results are pretty consistent from the pre-patch results. The set is fun, if a little chaotic. I definitely noticed an improvement with the faster DoTs on Cloudburst. I think the simplest solution to the IO Set problem is to give every aspect of Storm Cell and Cat-5 at least a minor amount of damage; and, thus, accept IO Sets tagged as "Damage". I am still finding that chasing down runners that have exited the Storm Cell results in protracted fights as the ramp down of damage outside of Storm Cell is pretty dramatic. Since Storm Cell so essential to the set, I will reiterate that my testing still makes me feel like it and Jet Stream should swap spaces.

I think one of the things I'm most excited about is this QoL bit of tech: The purple ring around Storm Cell indicating that it is not currently active. That is a bit of tech that I'd love to see added to a variety of powers. I adore that.

[Heatstroke]

2 hours ago, WindDemon21 said:

Or how about... the singularity pull in to the center of it :)))))) (or this at past makes sense for cat5)

 

(Though really still bringing up how tornado in storm summoning especially, and water spout should have this too)

 

I really wish their was a way to do NEGATIVE knockback which would mean the knockback would go in the opposite direction (think bonfire but knocking in to the center instead of away from it)

 

Excellent Idea for Cat 5 !!!!

[Heatstroke]

4 minutes ago, Captain Fabulous said:

Any chance of getting the VFX adjusted so we can color the lightning differently than the wind/rain effects in Storm Cell and Cat 5? Pretty please?

 

 

Again. I think as someone else suggested change the lightning to YELLOW to make it look different than the other hero based electric attacks.

[Captain Fabulous]

7 minutes ago, Heatstroke said:

 

Excellent Idea for Cat 5 !!!!

Honestly I kinda like the idea of it having a minor -repel.

 

7 minutes ago, Heatstroke said:

Again. I think as someone else suggested change the lightning to YELLOW to make it look different than the other hero based electric attacks.

I suggested it earlier before I scorched-Earth all my posts in this thread. I just want to be able to have the lightning in Storm Blast match that in Lightning Storm, which is another power that doesn't recolor very well. And just from a strictly visual point of view it makes sense to be able to color the lightning and storm/wind effects separately.

[Gobbledigook]

3 hours ago, WindDemon21 said:

Or how about... the singularity pull in to the center of it :)))))) (or this at past makes sense for cat5)

 

(Though really still bringing up how tornado in storm summoning especially, and water spout should have this too)

 

I really wish their was a way to do NEGATIVE knockback which would mean the knockback would go in the opposite direction (think bonfire but knocking in to the center instead of away from it)

Do you mean something like Axe Cyclone, it sucks enemies into the tornado? That would help to keep mobs in the damage zone and be very cool. Maybe have it do the vacuum effect every 5 seconds while active, so mobs trying to escape get sucked back in.

Edited April 20, 2023 by Gobbledigook

[Aeolus]

31 minutes ago, Captain Fabulous said:

I suggested it earlier before I scorched-Earth all my posts in this thread. I just want to be able to have the lightning in Storm Blast match that in Lightning Storm, which is another power that doesn't recolor very well. And just from a strictly visual point of view it makes sense to be able to color the lightning and storm/wind effects separately.

 

Agreed.  Storm Summoning isn't a good powerset to recolor.  It just looks off when it is done.  Changing Storm Blast to yellow will give it nice synergy with Storm Summoning.

[WindDemon21]

3 minutes ago, Gobbledigook said:

Do you mean something like Axe Cyclone, it sucks enemies into the tornado? That would help to keep mobs in the damage zone and be very cool. Maybe have it do the vacuum effect every 5 seconds so mobs trying to escape get sucked back in.

Exactly, i mean, singularity had it first lol, but yeah, exactly, at least in cat5 but even if it's a very minor one in cell too.

 

tornado/water spout should really have this too IMO.

[Beldath]

Okay, I think I have done enough testing on the set to give some decent feedback on this. This is from a perspective of a Storm/Storm/Darkness Corruptor, so keep this in mind.

The set is okay, it has middling damage, however, this is slightly crippled by the fact that a lot of its damage is slowly set up and builds over time than burst, this means the initial DPS is very poor, and cannot burst as most other blast sets can. But when used on a boss, in this case, a Pylon, its DPS becomes average with a wild DPS range, ranging from 318dps (202 seconds) with awful luck, to 520dps (98 seconds) with great luck, but usually settles at around 423dps (130 seconds). This would be somewhat okay if the DPS was consistent, but a good portion of this is backloaded in the set. This means it cannot realistically compete with higher-end sets such as Fire, Ice, or even Beam Rifle. The setup for the two main powers, C5 and Storm Cell take a very long time for what is supposed to be an AoE set, as they want to have very fast animation attacks to decimate as quickly as possible, but C5 Starts off weak and gets stronger rather than starting out strong and petering out, which hurts it a lot as well. And despite requiring a ramping period, it is not rewarded with more damage than the other top-end options. Furthermore, to get the most out of Storm Blast, at least for Storm/Storm, you are absolutely required to have Force Feedback on both C5 and Storm Cell but they do not benefit from Set bonuses meaning you have to rely on D-Syncs and Hami-Os to get the most out of them which is also bad because it also really wants high recharge to make C5 Permanent as it is a significant DPS loss if it does not stay up constantly. The CC is fine but slows and knocks are heavily overrated, they make a nice cherry, but for an AoE set you want to kill the trash yesterday, not just flop them onto their butts, as killing mobs is a much better form of CC than knocks and slows. So to summarize the major problems:

 

-Storm Cell and Category Five are too slow to cast and require very horrid slotting to use. This also makes it a VERY expensive build to make.

-The damage starts off poor, and becomes upper middling damage over time as most of it is back-ended, and still lower than bursting dps options.

-It's an AoE set with no AoE burst.

-Endurance drain does nothing, you can't even really slot for it, it might as well not exist.

 

Some solutions I have:

I have seen some suggestions that would give it a nice niche as a puller, a set that focuses on grouping things up to AoE could function well even if the DPS is somewhat poor.

-Jet Stream does a reverse repel, drawing enemies to you rather than away.

-C5 will attempt to pull enemies toward its AoE.

 

Also to make the set quicker and more responsive I suggest the following changes.

-The damage on C5 changed so it starts with the high damage and then slowly peters out.

-Change the cast time of C5 to 1.67 as it isn't really a nuke.

-One of these options in order of preference: (1) Cast time for Storm Cell is reduced to 1.07 seconds. (2) The movement speed for Storm Cell is significantly increased to at least the speed of MM pets. (3) It is changed to a PBAoE aura toggle.

 

And some miscellaneous suggestions:
-Make the damage/accuracy of Storm Cell and C5 scale with set mods.

-Make the damage less RNG dependent, and preferably slightly higher.

-Let either Jet Stream or Chain Lightning have a sort of 'Assassin strike', if out of combat and the enemies are in Storm Cell, have it have a chance to proc lightning/high winds on every mob hit inside the AoE so it has a burst,

 

Final thoughts:

I really, really like the set, theme, and visuals. So I want it to be comparable in strength with the other high-end blast sets. I am not doing this because I hate it, but because I love it and I see a ton of potential in it if it just gets nudged a bit in the right direction. You guys are doing great, and I am sure you can make this from a good set to an amazing set with just a few tweaks.

Edited April 20, 2023 by Beldath

[Zep]

I am liking Storm blasts - it would be nice were Storm Cell more visible, in particular due to how critical it is to the set. 

[MirrorDarkly]

Some quick feedback in the latest patch.

 

I really noticed the faster ticking DoT on Cloudburst. Also my Cat5 and Storm Burst had a 95% hit rate across the board (procs, etc) on a level 52 AV (Nightstar). 

 

Cat5 had 5/6 of the superior winter set and 1 IO recharge reduction. Storm Burst had 3 HO Acc/Dam and 3 procs. 

Edited April 20, 2023 by MirrorDarkly

[Bellicose]

1 hour ago, Beldath said:

-C5 will attempt to pull enemies toward its AoE.

 

This is such a strong suggestion. It's in theme, it's team friendly, it keeps mobs in the 'danger zone' (ameliorating the severe power down when fighting mobs outside of the Cell). It fixes a lot of issues.

[Glorificus]

Agree with the recommendations for a Singularity-like pull of enemies towards the center!

Also, I did notice the Endurance cost of Storm Cell to be quite prohibitively high especially at lower levels.  Would recommend halving the End cost at the very least.

 

I've been testing out the latest patch on Pylons, and have also noticed getting wildly different results each time.

The Lightning Aura Spread/Focused of Storm Cell seems to be set at base accuracy of 1.10x.  Is that correct?  The previous poster above was claiming the base accuracy of the Lightning procs to be 1.68x... so why do I see only 1.10x?

 

C5's lightning procs are also at 1.10x, as the previous poster mentioned above.

Edited April 20, 2023 by Glorificus

[Booper]

2 hours ago, Bellicose said:

 

This is such a strong suggestion. It's in theme, it's team friendly, it keeps mobs in the 'danger zone' (ameliorating the severe power down when fighting mobs outside of the Cell). It fixes a lot of issues.

Pulling in isn't on theme. I looked into it long ago when I was curious on an inverse-repel effect, but hurricanes don't suck things into its vortex. There is upward lifting winds, but objects would be blown up and out, sorta like what the vectored knock is currently doing. 

 

I did stretch the realism a bit by having the knock go somewhat inward while also knocking to the side,  which was done to be somewhat more player friendly. Instead of being thrown out of the hurricane, it will typically knock foes around the hurricane. Unless, of course, you enhance the KB and foes will cross over and out of its radius of effect 

[Booper]

1 hour ago, Glorificus said:

The previous poster above was claiming the base accuracy of the Lightning procs to be 1.68x... so why do I see only 1.10x

My guess is they slotted Storm Cell with 53% accuracy.

 

1.1 x 1.53 = 1.683

[Beldath]

45 minutes ago, Booper said:

Pulling in isn't on theme. I looked into it long ago when I was curious on an inverse-repel effect, but hurricanes don't suck things into its vortex. There is upward lifting winds, but objects would be blown up and out, sorta like what the vectored knock is currently doing. 

 

I did stretch the realism a bit by having the knock go somewhat inward while also knocking to the side,  which was done to be somewhat more player friendly. Instead of being thrown out of the hurricane, it will typically knock foes around the hurricane. Unless, of course, you enhance the KB and foes will cross over and out of its radius of effect 

I mean, if we are going to make that type of argument, we might as well delete half the sets, as many of them aren't really all that realistic when it comes to physics.

[VashNKnives]

1. I'm in the camp that I'd vote for some more burst in Cat 5 - maybe a lot more awesome AoE lightning or something. 
2. Storm Summoning works well with the set - the added damage really helps also
3. It is a very nice looking set in my opinion, though I can't really see Storm Cell (makes knowing where to keep the baddies difficult).  
4. I really like the animations 

Admittedly I used a non-incarnate storm/storm/mu defender (so lvl 50) to plow through the Infernal map of the prae arc... at +4x8... so it was bound to be slow. Wasn't defeated once - it was safe even without a self-heal with all the knockdowns, repels and slows (though I used one of my favorite tough defender builds to slot it - my storm/dark/mu defender). That is pretty impressive considering the massive amounts +4 baddies on the Infernal map.

Edited April 21, 2023 by VashNKnives

[WindDemon21]

2 hours ago, Booper said:

My guess is they slotted Storm Cell with 53% accuracy.

 

1.1 x 1.53 = 1.683

Ah right, I had bracketed storm cell to get it's unenhanced values and thought I was looking at that when took that screenshot. I thought that 1.68 sounded like an odd number but i think someone else said 1.64 probably with the same thing happening. The 1.1x sounds odd too cause.. you know, it's too low for a power that has to rely on itself to hit high level enemies due to the nature of how it works. Again 1.4x or 1.5x would be a much more reasonable number especially considering the slot exhaustiveness of the set, and ESPECIALLY considering if the whole set IO acc/dam issue isn't fixed.

 

But even with that fixed, for all the reasons mentioned already it should be about 1.4x base accuracy so it can reliably hit +3s with normal slotting, and even then still can't 95% hit chance against +4s even if you cap out it's 95% accuracy slotting since the power can't really inherent any to hit buffs over the duration with most combos, and it's pretty unreasonable slot-wise for a power to NEED to have it's accuracy stat fully capped in order to hit +3s even.

Edited April 21, 2023 by WindDemon21

[Frosticus]

Feedback on newest version of Storm Cell

 

Range - still too short. Compared to other battle precursors that don't cause aggro like Flash Arrow and Surveillance, it could benefit from 80ft.

I'm dangerously close to mobs when I cast this. I guess I could cast it a bit in front of the spawn and it would move over them into the middle? I'm just so used to casting aoes into the middle of spawns to maximize coverage.

 

Animation time - I'd prefer a bit quicker, but given that a handful of zaps makes it a solid DPA power it's total damage to animation can be very very good.

 

End Cost -  manageable, but def hurts in the lower levels when you are just getting powerful enough to move at a decent pace with under slotted attacks and toggles. Post uniques and accolades it is barely noticeable (for me), similar to a hasten crash. Back when Voltaic Sentinel was a click (still is for doms) it cost well over 20 end, so in that regard it is pretty good at 15.2 end. 

 

Base Accuracy Boost - not looking a gift horse in the mouth. 1.1x  helps a bit in low levels when you start turning up to +1, but you still need 80% acc to hit +3s and 120% acc (after ED) to hit +4s. So +4 is still a major weakness for so many storm blast users*

I'm leaning toward storm/time corruptor as it can get storm cell to perform well in most any situation. 

 

Combat log is hit and miss for reporting high winds activation. I can see the tohit debuff refreshing as it is generally easy to keep it applied if you keep attacking, but often not seeing a tohit roll in the log. 

 

If you like damage procs then ice minstrel and impeded swiftness seem to provide the best results. They showed up quite a bit more than superior malice of the corruptor, which I think makes sense given how the power works. You of course need to ensure High Winds hits, so 3 acc/dam HO's, 2 slow procs and a +5 range is what I've been testing lately. I'd add intuition radial as well. 

[Isulkian]

9 hours ago, Booper said:

Pulling in isn't on theme. I looked into it long ago when I was curious on an inverse-repel effect, but hurricanes don't suck things into its vortex. There is upward lifting winds, but objects would be blown up and out, sorta like what the vectored knock is currently doing. 

 

I did stretch the realism a bit by having the knock go somewhat inward while also knocking to the side,  which was done to be somewhat more player friendly. Instead of being thrown out of the hurricane, it will typically knock foes around the hurricane. Unless, of course, you enhance the KB and foes will cross over and out of its radius of effect 

a system of winds rotating inwards to an area of low barometric pressure, with an anticlockwise (northern hemisphere) or clockwise (southern hemisphere) circulation; a depression.

another term for tropical storm.

Here is the definition of a cyclone.....don t understand why it s thematic for battle axe and not for storm blast ....

 

Everybody seems to agree the set is a bit underperforming dpswise, give us something in return please

[Isulkian]

Regarding the number of pages in storm blast feedback, i think there s a lot of work ahead...

[Puma]

11 hours ago, Booper said:

Pulling in isn't on theme. I looked into it long ago when I was curious on an inverse-repel effect, but hurricanes don't suck things into its vortex. There is upward lifting winds, but objects would be blown up and out, sorta like what the vectored knock is currently doing. 

 

I did stretch the realism a bit by having the knock go somewhat inward while also knocking to the side,  which was done to be somewhat more player friendly. Instead of being thrown out of the hurricane, it will typically knock foes around the hurricane. Unless, of course, you enhance the KB and foes will cross over and out of its radius of effect 

 

I mean, they don't get amped up by their own lightning either, but that's how this version of a hurricane works.  I think we can suspend disbelief a little.  You could even make it so "foes are so terrified of the storm, they rush to the center, hoping the eye will be safer" if you have to have it make sense.  


Also, I did some more checking. On a corruptor, Tar Patch costs less than half the end of Storm Cell.  While you could argue that's because Tar Patch doesn't do damage directly on its own, it DOES do -res, which adds to the damage of your other attacks do similar to Storm Cell.  Tar Patch also slows like Storm Cell...only it does it better, so could we at least get maybe an end cost of 10 instead of the 15?