Suggestions for Development and testing

[Rudra]

24 minutes ago, WindDemon21 said:

it's currently REALLY harsh pre-30

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that is most likely play style or the Defender AT. My Storm/Storm Corrupter has no worse performance than any of my other Corrupters at low levels, and I'm not even using Storm Cell unless I'm looking at bosses or spawns that make me worry for lack of enhancements.

 

24 minutes ago, WindDemon21 said:

the set is also HUGELY doubled down, where chain lighting comes in. As it has WORSE stats than every other similar ranged aoe, doesn't proc, and has no valuable secondary effect to the aoe

Comparing the attacks from the Electrical Blast set which have -END as their secondary and Chain Lightning which has -END as its secondary and picks up additional -END when used against targets affected by Storm Cell, I have no idea what you are talking about for no valuable secondary effect. So if Chain Lightning's secondary effect has no value, does that mean you think all of Electrical Blast's attacks have no valuable secondary too?

 

24 minutes ago, WindDemon21 said:

and can even miss all, or at least half of the mob easily due to its chain nature.

That is how Chain Induction from Electrical Melee works too. So are you saying that needs to be changed too?

 

24 minutes ago, WindDemon21 said:

Without question, it's the end heaviest set i've ever played for a blast set

Have you tried Dark Blast? Its END costs are equal to or higher than Storm Blasts from what I have seen. (Edit: Actually, several powers from other power sets also have the same END cost as Storm Cell for the same or similar powers.)

 

While I would not complain if the proc chances for Storm Blast's attacks were to be increased when used against targets in Storm Cell, I am still not seeing anything actually wrong with the set.

Edited May 15, 2023 by Rudra

[WindDemon21]

11 minutes ago, Rudra said:

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that is most likely play style or the Defender AT. My Storm/Storm Corrupter has no worse performance than any of my other Corrupters at low levels, and I'm not even using Storm Cell unless I'm looking at bosses or spawns that make me worry for lack of enhancements.

I've done two other corruptors as well. It's, well again big part on chains stats, but that's also how the issue is mechanical via storm cell as I've described. Yeah defenders are harsher, but even storm blast as primary still basically needs chain and cloud slotted and a good amount of rech due to the proc chance issues of the lower attacks.

 

11 minutes ago, Rudra said:

Comparing the attacks from the Electrical Blast set which have -END as their secondary and Chain Lightning which has -END as its secondary and picks up additional -END when used against targets affected by Storm Cell, I have no idea what you are talking about for no valuable secondary effect. So if Chain Lightning's secondary effect has no value, does that mean you think all of Electrical Blast's attacks have no valuable secondary too?

Elec blast is WHOLLY different, because it actually has a main power that you can use to good effect to synergize the drains and keep enemies floored. Storm blast does not have this mostly outside of the nuke, which still takes time to use to it's effect. They are nowhere near the same in comparison.

 

11 minutes ago, Rudra said:

That is how Chain Induction from Electrical Melee works too. So are you saying that needs to be changed too?

Except they don't actually work the same. Chain induction works as a single target attack, and then it chains per target after, so for one procs actually work in the power. Chain lightning doesn't work in this same fashion. It also has as mentioned, it's damage scaling lower per target spread out down the chain, so most damage to the mob is actually only about 60% of the value on average. In this regard as well, the stats are abhorrently disproportionate.

 

11 minutes ago, Rudra said:

Have you tried Dark Blast? Its END costs are equal to or higher than Storm Blasts from what I have seen.

 

While I would not complain if the proc chances for Storm Blast's attacks were to be increased when used against targets in Storm Cell, I am still not seeing anything actually wrong with the set.

I have several dark blast characters. One being an actual storm summoning defender, IE storm/dark defender. And it had/has nowhere near the end problems that the storm/storm has. (not that dark blast is perfect, largely needing torrent to be the actually damaging umbral torrent)

 

Edit: to a point that Puma has pointed out as well before, the set also suffers GRAVELY from only working as an all-in set. Any other blast set can supplement aoe or build versatility with their secondary or primary on defenders. Especially if you look towards blasters. But storm has an inherent net-loss that other sets simply do not have due to the way storm cell and c5 operate. This alone SHOULD mean that it should excel more than other blast sets when focused on it, but it often just means that any other combo that doesn't solely focus on storm blast and tries to actually use it's other skills is SoL. This is a big part of where I mentioned that all attacks should proc 100% of the time, and then actually use that lockout to let you use other skills without worrying about losing procc chances off storm cell and c5.

Edited May 15, 2023 by WindDemon21

[Rudra]

I'm going to go even further out on this limb:

It's most likely your play style.

[WindDemon21]

3 minutes ago, Rudra said:

I'm going to go even further out on this limb:

It's most likely your play style.

It's definitely not the playstyle. Having played other storm defenders for one with just a different blast set. I know what i'm doing, the only other "playstyle" would be one that is being lazy and not actually doing what they can.

[Rudra]

I never said you didn't know what you were doing. And the Storm Summoning Set isn't really a factor. Storm Blast was designed to be different from other blast sets. It doesn't play the same. It can be played more or less the same way other blast sets are, but it was not designed to. Your play style seems to be more focused on the way the other blast sets play. And like I said, Storm Blast is not the other sets. It plays by its own rules.

 

Edit: Also, your statement that the only other play style is being lazy and not actually doing what you can is wrong. There are as many different play styles as there are players.

Edited May 15, 2023 by Rudra

[WindDemon21]

14 hours ago, Rudra said:

I never said you didn't know what you were doing. And the Storm Summoning Set isn't really a factor. Storm Blast was designed to be different from other blast sets. It doesn't play the same. It can be played more or less the same way other blast sets are, but it was not designed to. Your play style seems to be more focused on the way the other blast sets play. And like I said, Storm Blast is not the other sets. It plays by its own rules.

 

Edit: Also, your statement that the only other play style is being lazy and not actually doing what you can is wrong. There are as many different play styles as there are players.

Regarding blast sets though, no, the statement was pretty true. It's actually even MORE true with storm blast, because you HAVE to maximize the spamming of the main proccing powers to get the procs out of cell and c5. That was part of the main statement of needing to have all the skills have guaranteed proc chances. This WOULD help that issue out a good bit because it would allow you to flow the chain more by using the powers. Ie, could actually use gust without having to worry about not proccing cell/c5 cause its proc rate is terrible etc while also allowing the set to be more effective in the lower levels as well.

 

Doing anything else, unlike other blast sets, means you are inherently losing the value of cell and c5 due to having to self-proc those powers. That's why storm blast NEEDS more attention strictly to using the storm blast powers only. Anything else will double down on the loss of damage that no other blast set has to deal with. You basically just admitted and agreed to what we were already saying by saying it plays differently. It's that different nature, that specifically unlike any other blast set, means you have to solely focus on storm blast attacks or else lose effectiveness of the set.

 

Guaranteeing 100% proc rate on all attacks, would help to solve this issue as you could use those other powers in between storm blast attacks while the lockout is present (when the mob is died down, on a big mob you still have to solely use storm blast powers to max proc cell and c5 until the target caps on the procs are equal to the amount of enemies left) This is the main issue with how the set functions that @Puma and I have also stated out many times now.

[Marbing]

It would help if someone could do a with Storm Cell vs Without Storm Cell DPS comparison so everyone could see just how much loss there actually is as a starting point. 

[Ruin Mage]

Hard data helps more than anything. Hard concrete visible comparisons.

[Wavicle]

4 hours ago, Marbing said:

It would help if someone could do a with Storm Cell vs Without Storm Cell DPS comparison so everyone could see just how much loss there actually is as a starting point. 

I did some of that late in Beta.

Limited data, and very limited sample size, but it's better than nothing.

On a level 34 Storm/Ice Blaster, +1/x2 Council Radio mission.

 

With Storm Cell:

 

Without Storm Cell:

 

Edited May 15, 2023 by Wavicle

[WindDemon21]

3 minutes ago, Wavicle said:

I did some of that late in Beta.

Limited data, and very limited sample size, but it's better than nothing.

On a level 34 Storm/Ice Blaster.

 

With Storm Cell:

 

Without Storm Cell:

 

This is really nifty you can do that I didn't know there was a way to see the percentage of your attacks. Though this doesn't really help  cause this is just showing the damage of your attacks within the set, not compared to other sets. The only way this specific chat would help would be to say, show the damage a regular rain power does for a set, mostly just with fire and water blast, since ice works differently not really having a good real aoe and being skewed to blizzard.

 

Though the one thing this chart does show is two things, how terribly storm cell is currently for something that should be a major damage, especially over time as the mob dies down, which as I've explained above it currently does not do due to the issues with the proc chances on the attacks, esp the early ones. Why all attacks should have that 100% proc chance for cell and c5. And it also shows how terrible and basically unusable jet stream is without storm cell due to the repel.

 

In that regard, it also very much skews, or possibly explains what i've already said regarding chain lighting. For how terrible it is, yet that's still one of your most damage without storm cell because without cell, due to the jet stream issues, the set has practically zero aoe as it is, with chain sometimes missing all or half the mob due to it's chain nature, and it having much less damage than a standard ranged aoe has, yet stupidly has a 20s rech time where they usually have about a 16s recharge.

 

So in a way this chart actually does help to showcase those things, it just doesn't really compared it well to other sets, but does help point out those major flaws that i've described before, and just now.

[Marbing]

2 hours ago, Wavicle said:

I did some of that late in Beta.

Limited data, and very limited sample size, but it's better than nothing.

On a level 34 Storm/Ice Blaster, +1/x2 Council Radio mission.

 

With Storm Cell:

 

Without Storm Cell:

 

So Storm Cell out accounts for approximately 10% overall damage of storm blast at lvl 34… interesting. So in essence, at least at that level, it doesn’t seem like you’re losing much damage if you can’t keep it up. In your test, that is.

Edited May 15, 2023 by Marbing

[Wavicle]

I think what the chart really doesn't show is how MASSIVELY VALUABLE are the debuffs from Storm Cell+High Winds and the knockdown from Lightning. It is NOT just a damage power, it's a survival power too.

[WindDemon21]

34 minutes ago, Wavicle said:

I think what the chart really doesn't show is how MASSIVELY VALUABLE are the debuffs from Storm Cell+High Winds and the knockdown from Lightning. It is NOT just a damage power, it's a survival power too.

Right, but you also have to factor that against other sets, knowing that as borked as it is, chain lightning averaging about 60% damage of a regular ranged aoe, AND having that longer rech of 20s versus most's 16s, it's only doing about 50% on average of what a regular aoe would do. So looking at that, Storm cell is only adding about 35% of the damage that a normal aoe would do. Yes it does help mitigate which I love, but that's still really really poor for a power that you have to actually slot for damage and has base accuracy issues as well needing higher than average accuracy slotting. Again, all hence why all the attacks should be having a 100% proc rate. (and fixing chain too of course) being the main things that need fixed with the set.

[Captain Fabulous]

JFC are you nimrods STILL going on about Storm Blast???

[Wavicle]

I think it’s a fine set. High survivability, great damage in long fights.

 

Pairs well with Fold Space.

[Wavicle]

19 minutes ago, WindDemon21 said:

Right, but you also have to factor that against other sets, knowing that as borked as it is, chain lightning averaging about 60% damage of a regular ranged aoe, AND having that longer rech of 20s versus most's 16s, it's only doing about 50% on average of what a regular aoe would do. So looking at that, Storm cell is only adding about 35% of the damage that a normal aoe would do. Yes it does help mitigate which I love, but that's still really really poor for a power that you have to actually slot for damage and has base accuracy issues as well needing higher than average accuracy slotting. Again, all hence why all the attacks should be having a 100% proc rate. (and fixing chain too of course) being the main things that need fixed with the set.

Your attacks effectively get two secondary effects. It’s worth it.

[Rudra]

16 minutes ago, WindDemon21 said:

Right, but you also have to factor that against other sets, knowing that as borked as it is, chain lightning averaging about 60% damage of a regular ranged aoe, AND having that longer rech of 20s versus most's 16s, it's only doing about 50% on average of what a regular aoe would do. So looking at that, Storm cell is only adding about 35% of the damage that a normal aoe would do. Yes it does help mitigate which I love, but that's still really really poor for a power that you have to actually slot for damage and has base accuracy issues as well needing higher than average accuracy slotting. Again, all hence why all the attacks should be having a 100% proc rate. (and fixing chain too of course) being the main things that need fixed with the set.

Fire Blast's Blazing Bolt: 281.5268 points of Fire damage (all affected targets)

Storm Blast's Direct Strike: 281.5268 points of Energy damage (all affected targets)

 

Fire Blast's Fire Blast: 62.5615 points of Fire damage (all affected targets)

Storm Blast's Gust: 62.5615 points of Smashing damage (all affected targets)

 

If the base damage is comparable, or in these cases equal, and Storm Blast's Storm Cell only accounts for 10% of the damage but also applies a lot of crowd control, then what exactly is your argument?

[WindDemon21]

5 minutes ago, Rudra said:

Fire Blast's Blazing Bolt: 281.5268 points of Fire damage (all affected targets)

Storm Blast's Direct Strike: 281.5268 points of Energy damage (all affected targets)

 

Fire Blast's Fire Blast: 62.5615 points of Fire damage (all affected targets)

Storm Blast's Gust: 62.5615 points of Smashing damage (all affected targets)

 

If the base damage is comparable, or in these cases equal, and Storm Blast's Storm Cell only accounts for 10% of the damage but also applies a lot of crowd control, then what exactly is your argument?

If you were listening at all, this whole issue revolved around storm blasts aoe primarily, picking out the single target skills is just proving that you haven't been listening at all to what we've been saying the issues are regarding this set. Also, all snipes are pretty much the same, there's not much point in comparing them between sets really. (except for AR's which had an extra long cast time in quick form but they fixed that for this very reason).

 

Also, on that note though, ugh cloudbursts animation, time to get to target, still long DoT, and literally zero secondary effect without storm cell is just god awful.

[WindDemon21]

9 minutes ago, Wavicle said:

Your attacks effectively get two secondary effects. It’s worth it.

By having to use and slot a whole power designed around that. It's not a problem if it's doing enough of what it's supposed to do but clearly it isn't. It also means, you get zero effect OUT of the procs on cell/c5 without focusing on your storm blast powers which is also part of the issue that was brought up. Now again, this isn't an issue if the powers do enough properly, but that's why were here, because they aren't doing enough currently and there is a failed design in the current mechanic that needs fixed. NONE of us are saying to change what the powers do, just the stats/proc chances need tweaked to line the set up better.

[Rudra]

18 minutes ago, WindDemon21 said:

By having to use and slot a whole power designed around that. It's not a problem if it's doing enough of what it's supposed to do but clearly it isn't. It also means, you get zero effect OUT of the procs on cell/c5 without focusing on your storm blast powers which is also part of the issue that was brought up. Now again, this isn't an issue if the powers do enough properly, but that's why were here, because they aren't doing enough currently and there is a failed design in the current mechanic that needs fixed. NONE of us are saying to change what the powers do, just the stats/proc chances need tweaked to line the set up better.

As opposed to say... having to get a whole power designed around boosting your accuracy and damage in order to boost your accuracy and damage? Like... Intensify?

 

Storm Cell is not an attack power. It is a debuff power that also happens to have the ability to do triggered attacks.

 

Edit:

Also:

"If you were listening at all, this whole issue revolved around storm blasts aoe primarily,"

The OP says nothing about Storm Blast's AoEs. It does address Storm Cell and Category 5, but nothing else. So the other complaints were introduced by others including you.

 

And if you want AoE damage:

Storm Blast's Chain Lighting:

-7.0% Endurance (all affected targets)

51.4256 points of Energy damage (all affected targets)

6.2562 points of Energy damage (all affected targets) every 0.6s for 2.2s (100% chance)

 

Storm Blast's Cloudburst:

14.2327 points of Cold damage (all affected targets) every 0.3s for 2.9s (100% chance)

 

Fire Blast's Fire Ball:

43.7931 points of Fire damage (all affected targets)

12.5123 points of Smashing damage (all affected targets)

9.3842 points of Fire damage (all affected targets) every 1.0s for 2.1s (80% chance) after 0.5s

 

Fire Blast's Fire Breath:

36.5985 points of Fire damage (all affected targets) every 1.0s for 2.1s (100% chance) after 1.0s

 

Looks comparable to me.

Edited May 16, 2023 by Rudra

[Wavicle]

I also like how each AT has a different advantage with it: Blasters get the highest damage, the set pairs well with Corruptors Scourge, Defenders get really great debuffs from Storm Cell, and Sentinels can make C5 perma in long fights.

[Puma]

9 hours ago, WindDemon21 said:

Right, but you also have to factor that against other sets, knowing that as borked as it is, chain lightning averaging about 60% damage of a regular ranged aoe, AND having that longer rech of 20s versus most's 16s, it's only doing about 50% on average of what a regular aoe would do. So looking at that, Storm cell is only adding about 35% of the damage that a normal aoe would do. Yes it does help mitigate which I love, but that's still really really poor for a power that you have to actually slot for damage and has base accuracy issues as well needing higher than average accuracy slotting. Again, all hence why all the attacks should be having a 100% proc rate. (and fixing chain too of course) being the main things that need fixed with the set.

Don't forget that other AoEs also have mitigation.  Ice Storm does quite a bit of slow and distracts foes.  Several cone attacks do knocback/knockdown, Psy Tornado does knock up, Sonic's cone does sleep, whirlpool does slow, etc.  And none of those do any less if you follow them up with your secondary powers instead of your primary.   

[Puma]

8 hours ago, Rudra said:

As opposed to say... having to get a whole power designed around boosting your accuracy and damage in order to boost your accuracy and damage? Like... Intensify?

 

Storm Cell is not an attack power. It is a debuff power that also happens to have the ability to do triggered attacks.

 

Edit:

Also:

"If you were listening at all, this whole issue revolved around storm blasts aoe primarily,"

The OP says nothing about Storm Blast's AoEs. It does address Storm Cell and Category 5, but nothing else. So the other complaints were introduced by others including you.

 

And if you want AoE damage:

Storm Blast's Chain Lighting:

-7.0% Endurance (all affected targets)

51.4256 points of Energy damage (all affected targets)

6.2562 points of Energy damage (all affected targets) every 0.6s for 2.2s (100% chance)

 

Storm Blast's Cloudburst:

14.2327 points of Cold damage (all affected targets) every 0.3s for 2.9s (100% chance)

 

Fire Blast's Fire Ball:

43.7931 points of Fire damage (all affected targets)

12.5123 points of Smashing damage (all affected targets)

9.3842 points of Fire damage (all affected targets) every 1.0s for 2.1s (80% chance) after 0.5s

 

Fire Blast's Fire Breath:

36.5985 points of Fire damage (all affected targets) every 1.0s for 2.1s (100% chance) after 1.0s

 

Looks comparable to me.

Fireball doesn't "chain" and thus doesn't have the weird chance to basically do little to nothing like Chain Lightning.  

 

And cloudburst takes an entire second longer to do far less damage, according to your numbers above.   

 

Meanwhile Fire also gets Rain of Fire, which does pretty solid damage. And sure, Storm Cell does more debuff...but if that's its purpose, even then High Winds is only triggered when you're following it up with more Storm Blast attacks.  


You're literally proving his point.    

 

But this conversation clearly isn't going anywhere.   

 

[Marbing]

10 hours ago, Wavicle said:

I think what the chart really doesn't show is how MASSIVELY VALUABLE are the debuffs from Storm Cell+High Winds and the knockdown from Lightning. It is NOT just a damage power, it's a survival power too.

Correct.

[Player-1]

@WindDemon21, I would advise that the best way to get our eyes and ears on something is to be objective as with @Wavicle in providing evidence to back up claims.

 

Just saying "X is godawful and the devs MUST do Y to fix it!" is guaranteed to be glazed over when compared to doing the work of "X is godawful because of ABC compared directly to DEF, it would be better if Y was done instead". Making dozens of posts in a row without stopping to dig down and bring up the specifics, resorting to hyperbole, and focusing on retorting with other posters rather than the actual issue at hand will only get posts like this critiquing the method of feedback.