Storm Blast Sentinel!

[StriderIV]

What secondary do you feel pairs well with the new Storm Blast?

 

I was thinking Elec Armor, Regen or Bio Armor. Would love to hear any synergies anyone else has been thinking of!

[FupDup]

Energy Aura and Ice Armor probably have some synergy since both have a sapping power (Storm has some sapping on its own), and can be easily made to fit the same theme. 

[StriderIV]

4 minutes ago, FupDup said:

Energy Aura and Ice Armor probably have some synergy since both have a sapping power (Storm has some sapping on its own), and can be easily made to fit the same theme. 

You know, I was looking at /Elec Armor for the sapping potential, but you are totally right about Energy Aura and Ice Armor as well!

[Sovera]

Not really much of a point in sapping stuff though. Most things are dead before the sapping is complete and without some hefty -recovery all the NPCs need is 1 endurance to fire whatever attack.

 

I would stick to whatever brings extra endurance to make up for the hefty endurance costs, and if possible some extra recharge might not hurt though it's not 100% needed. Just Hailstone with 50% KD proc chance in Storm Cell should be enough to make recharge sweet enough.

 

Definitely endurance or recovery which does bring us back to having /elec as a good choice, and thematic to boot.

[StriderIV]

1 hour ago, Sovera said:

Not really much of a point in sapping stuff though. Most things are dead before the sapping is complete and without some hefty -recovery all the NPCs need is 1 endurance to fire whatever attack.

 

I would stick to whatever brings extra endurance to make up for the hefty endurance costs, and if possible some extra recharge might not hurt though it's not 100% needed. Just Hailstone with 50% KD proc chance in Storm Cell should be enough to make recharge sweet enough.

 

Definitely endurance or recovery which does bring us back to having /elec as a good choice, and thematic to boot.

True, leaning into the sapping may be pointless. What Sent secondaries bring the best end recovery mixed with toughness? 
 

Elec Armor is probably up there. Others are probably Rad Armor, Bio Armor and maybe Regen or Energy Aura?

[Gobbledigook]

Energy aura is a good defence set that reduces end cost. Bio is good for that extra damage but i am not sure how the offensive dot works with SB.

 

EA is a solid choice of end recovery and toughness with +recharge to perma them Cat 5's lol and that would be my choice.

Edited April 26, 2023 by Gobbledigook

[drbuzzard]

I built a storm/regen on test, and it worked OK. I'll probably build one on live just to give a review of the set, but I can't see it becoming one of the top tier sets because of the weak nuke. 

[StriderIV]

31 minutes ago, drbuzzard said:

I built a storm/regen on test, and it worked OK. I'll probably build one on live just to give a review of the set, but I can't see it becoming one of the top tier sets because of the weak nuke. 

True. I guess one of the big sells on Sents is being able to drop your T9 very frequently.

[Frosticus]

I'm running storm/fire sent. Storm is very defensive. Fire armor is hard to put out if you give it room to breathe and gives storm some additional punch with burn and pheonix nukes.

I dunno, just got direct strike so now my storm cell is actually proc'ing fairly often. The starter attacks have such low proc chance that I'm not sure taking storm cell at 6 was even worthwhile. The later attacks are much more desirable. 

 

I'm hopeful this combo stays engaging as I typically find myself losing interest in my sentinels in the late 30's/early 40's. 

[biostem]

I wanted to create a "tempest ninja" for a while now, so rolled a storm blast/ninjitsu sentinel.

[MirrorDarkly]

On test I tried /Rad, SR, EA and Regen.

 

Regen was my favorite of those although I'm very tempted to try /fire now that it is live. 

[drbuzzard]

20 hours ago, StriderIV said:

True. I guess one of the big sells on Sents is being able to drop your T9 very frequently.

Yeah, I always build to the fast recharge nuke. Neat thing on storm is you can actually get near perma on the T9 nuke since it is DoT. It would be great solo, but on teams it would just be wasted damage. 

[Crysis]

On 4/26/2023 at 4:02 PM, StriderIV said:

True. I guess one of the big sells on Sents is being able to drop your T9 very frequently.

 

Which in the cast of Category 5 means you’ll be able to drop your T9 nuke really fast and -almost- equal another Sentinel dropping their T9 nuke ONCE.  Because of how the damage is back-loaded, and even with that penalty, you aren’t rewarded by getting a higher damage T9 or larger radius or anything.

 

Taking Storm Blast on a Sentinel makes almost no sense for me.  You take an AT that already has lots of opportunity for improvement and cripple it with a new blast set that really was designed around a solo player as most of it’s best powers don’t work on steamrolling teams and you have basically a door sitter who moves from mission to mission.

[drbuzzard]

13 hours ago, Crysis said:

 

Which in the cast of Category 5 means you’ll be able to drop your T9 nuke really fast and -almost- equal another Sentinel dropping their T9 nuke ONCE.  Because of how the damage is back-loaded, and even with that penalty, you aren’t rewarded by getting a higher damage T9 or larger radius or anything.

 

Taking Storm Blast on a Sentinel makes almost no sense for me.  You take an AT that already has lots of opportunity for improvement and cripple it with a new blast set that really was designed around a solo player as most of it’s best powers don’t work on steamrolling teams and you have basically a door sitter who moves from mission to mission.

 

While I'd agree that Storm blast on a sentinel is not the best choice by any means, this is a bit hyperbolic. You certainly don't need to door sit and will still contribute. I've got my storm/SR sentinel to 50 now and it does work OK. Of course I have a lot of sentinels which work better, but storm does have its uses in certain places. One good case is BAF trials. With my normal high levels of global recharge in the build I could spam perma Category 5 (and storm cell, but that's perma anyway) during the prisoner escape phase, and that a good job of blocking things. One thing that shocked me was even with only +1 level shift I was getting the pissed off AV rings from Nightstar and Siege at the end. I would not have assumed by damage to be so good, but I guess all the effects stacked do amount to a good bit of damage. I have trouble decoding the City of Data on this set (as it's all powers triggering sub powers) so really getting how much damage potential it has is not clear. 

 

The limitation of storm blast is the same as the limitation of any of the location based buff/debuff sets. It does suffer a bit on high speed teams. However you will eventually hit an AV unless you're doing radio missions (for some reason I don't grasp) or farming. On AVs the powers work pretty well as long as you have a tank along to keep them in place. Without a tank things can get scattered a lot which will cut your damage. 

[Crysis]

12 minutes ago, drbuzzard said:

 

While I'd agree that Storm blast on a sentinel is not the best choice by any means, this is a bit hyperbolic. You certainly don't need to door sit and will still contribute. I've got my storm/SR sentinel to 50 now and it does work OK. Of course I have a lot of sentinels which work better, but storm does have its uses in certain places. One good case is BAF trials. With my normal high levels of global recharge in the build I could spam perma Category 5 (and storm cell, but that's perma anyway) during the prisoner escape phase, and that a good job of blocking things. One thing that shocked me was even with only +1 level shift I was getting the pissed off AV rings from Nightstar and Siege at the end. I would not have assumed by damage to be so good, but I guess all the effects stacked do amount to a good bit of damage. I have trouble decoding the City of Data on this set (as it's all powers triggering sub powers) so really getting how much damage potential it has is not clear. 

 

The limitation of storm blast is the same as the limitation of any of the location based buff/debuff sets. It does suffer a bit on high speed teams. However you will eventually hit an AV unless you're doing radio missions (for some reason I don't grasp) or farming. On AVs the powers work pretty well as long as you have a tank along to keep them in place. Without a tank things can get scattered a lot which will cut your damage. 

 

Yes, I was being inflammatory and hyperbolic.

 

As far as Storm Blast goes, it was released as-is -despite- a lot of really creative and insightful playtesting feedback in the Focused Feedback thread.  I tested it, many others tested it, and it’s a gorgeous set with incredible FX and with an “interesting” mechanic that basically forces you to blast like crazy and ignore your secondary/tertiary attacks almost completely to get any kind of acceptable damage.  And most of that is back loaded, meaning it totally ignores how the 40-50+ game is played via steamrolling teams.  

 

For the Sent class, the only logical way I could see ever taking Storm Blast -besides for meme/theme builds- is with a secondary that either has a damage aura or likely Bio with some ways to passively amplify your damage.  It’s just a really underwhelming mechanic.

 

Hyperbole -NOT- intended, I have a Storm/Storm/Dark Corruptor build on Test right now where I dropped Storm Cell and Cat 5 entirely….the two set defining (albeit poorly IMO) powers- and took Cross Punch and Whirlwind, both procc’d out.  I’m seeing spawn clear times of >40% faster now solo with those two changes.  Which at that point means…why am I taking Storm Blast at all?

 

I may try to setup a Storm/Bio Sent on Test and do likewise.   But my expectations are quite low beyond thematics (again, gorgeous) because Sentinels are still fundamentally underpowered versus almost any other builds for the same investment of powers, slotting and enhancements.

[Sovera]

22 minutes ago, Crysis said:

 

Yes, I was being inflammatory and hyperbolic.

 

As far as Storm Blast goes, it was released as-is -despite- a lot of really creative and insightful playtesting feedback in the Focused Feedback thread.  I tested it, many others tested it, and it’s a gorgeous set with incredible FX and with an “interesting” mechanic that basically forces you to blast like crazy and ignore your secondary/tertiary attacks almost completely to get any kind of acceptable damage.  And most of that is back loaded, meaning it totally ignores how the 40-50+ game is played via steamrolling teams.  

 

For the Sent class, the only logical way I could see ever taking Storm Blast -besides for meme/theme builds- is with a secondary that either has a damage aura or likely Bio with some ways to passively amplify your damage.  It’s just a really underwhelming mechanic.

 

Hyperbole -NOT- intended, I have a Storm/Storm/Dark Corruptor build on Test right now where I dropped Storm Cell and Cat 5 entirely….the two set defining (albeit poorly IMO) powers- and took Cross Punch and Whirlwind, both procc’d out.  I’m seeing spawn clear times of >40% faster now solo with those two changes.  Which at that point means…why am I taking Storm Blast at all?

 

I may try to setup a Storm/Bio Sent on Test and do likewise.   But my expectations are quite low beyond thematics (again, gorgeous) because Sentinels are still fundamentally underpowered versus almost any other builds for the same investment of powers, slotting and enhancements.

 

I still feel you're exaggerating what is a real issue. A melee cone with mediocre damage is helping more (survival included) than all the procs from both ground effects? Plus the modified effects from using the blasts? I would need to see some actual numbers including slotting before taking this at face value.

 

You're right about the rest with the exception Sentinels feels like Storm was made for it instead of the reverse. It's the one AT that has no secondary buffs or debuffs to keep up and can just blast until kingdom come.

 

But yeah, the devs were firm on their vision (I'm getting Jack Emmet flashbacks) though I am at least thankful that the firm stance on Storm Cell's recharge was changed. It just does not fit in the meta and saying it is a hipster set helps nothing since hipster sets are by their very nature niche. Are we planning for the 1% or the 99%?

[Black_Assassin]

44 minutes ago, Crysis said:

Cross Punch and Whirlwind, both procc’d out.  I’m seeing spawn clear times of >40% faster now solo with those two changes.

 

Whirlwind from the speed pool? That can only take 1 damage proc. 

 

Does it proc often then? Seems like a super whack combo but I have never tried it myself 🤔🤔🤔🤔

[drbuzzard]

4 hours ago, Crysis said:

I may try to setup a Storm/Bio Sent on Test and do likewise.   But my expectations are quite low beyond thematics (again, gorgeous) because Sentinels are still fundamentally underpowered versus almost any other builds for the same investment of powers, slotting and enhancements.

 

If you are on a team with anything but corrupters and maybe a tank, you're sub optimal. That's just how the game works. Complaining that sentinels are less than optimal is like saying water is wet. So are scrappers, brutes, etc. Sentinels are at least roughly competitive now. Given good slotting, and knowing how to play the game, I can keep up even on good teams (perhaps not with my storm, but with a better sentinel). 

[DangerKitty]

On 5/3/2023 at 7:55 AM, Crysis said:

 

Yes, I was being inflammatory and hyperbolic.

 

As far as Storm Blast goes, it was released as-is -despite- a lot of really creative and insightful playtesting feedback in the Focused Feedback thread.  I tested it, many others tested it, and it’s a gorgeous set with incredible FX and with an “interesting” mechanic that basically forces you to blast like crazy and ignore your secondary/tertiary attacks almost completely to get any kind of acceptable damage.  And most of that is back loaded, meaning it totally ignores how the 40-50+ game is played via steamrolling teams.  

 

For the Sent class, the only logical way I could see ever taking Storm Blast -besides for meme/theme builds- is with a secondary that either has a damage aura or likely Bio with some ways to passively amplify your damage.  It’s just a really underwhelming mechanic.

 

Hyperbole -NOT- intended, I have a Storm/Storm/Dark Corruptor build on Test right now where I dropped Storm Cell and Cat 5 entirely….the two set defining (albeit poorly IMO) powers- and took Cross Punch and Whirlwind, both procc’d out.  I’m seeing spawn clear times of >40% faster now solo with those two changes.  Which at that point means…why am I taking Storm Blast at all?

 

I may try to setup a Storm/Bio Sent on Test and do likewise.   But my expectations are quite low beyond thematics (again, gorgeous) because Sentinels are still fundamentally underpowered versus almost any other builds for the same investment of powers, slotting and enhancements.

Agreed.

And you're not being hyperbolic. Storm Blast is just THAT bad.

 

I have a Storm/Storm corruptor. Entirely played in missions/TF's, no farming. I wanted to learn the set and explore it.

At first I thought maybe the storm-blast set just gets it's strength in late game.

Then I thought, "maybe it just needs more slots"

Then I thought, "maybe some expensive IO's can breath life into it"

None of these things turned out to be the case.

 

Doing a level 40 mission with about 250 million inf in IO's already in it... It was the ancillary arc, so I had it set to +0/x1, to unlock the pool quickly. I had been leaning very heavily on the /Storm secondary, and that was somewhat disguising just how bad Storm Blast was performing. So I decided to just stick with my primary for damage, to carefully observe how Storm Blast itself is performing. This was a low-difficulty Arc, just to quickly unlock the ancillary pool. Great time to do some testing on white-label Lt's.

Storm Blast does not perform.

 

- I was constantly endurance-crashing (and not from sapping attacks). Even though I have 3 slots in Stamina, and multiple endurance proc IO's.

- The setup to try to output damage is very long. Not only are the animations long, but after a 2 second attack animation, there's a further 2+ seconds it takes to actually do the damage. I'm used to DoT damage, i often use it. Gloom for exampole is an excellent single target attack. Probably the best ST ranged attack in the game at level 1.

- Your attacks don't start to do any significant damage unless you keep an invisible counter up, and even when you do, you're rewarded with relatively weak, slow, damage, and a completely empty endurance bar.

- The Storm Cell doesn't stay where you put it, but at the same time, it follows you on such a weird path and delay that it cannot be reliably taken to a new combat area, or be positioned in any intelligible way. I believe it is using the "sometimes follows your character, sorta, flip a coin" coding from Carrion Creepers. But at least Carrion Creepers covers a huge AoE. Storm Cell covers a quite small area (same as Freezing Rain, which is small enough to need *precise* placement to be useful).

- Chain lightning is "almost ok". But it takes it's dear sweet time animating it's arcing damage. In group play, 1/2 of your chain lightning attacks never materialize into any AoE effect. Which just kills the power.

- Category 5 will only noticeably annoy mobs if you have used Intensify before it. And even then, it doesn't actually kill anything. It's damage output is about on par with an un-boosted Fireball. And similar in coverage (yes it covers a larger area, but it doesn't hit everything in that area).

- No matter what slotting you do, and even if you have both of the +End acolades as well, You will have a huge struggle to use Storm Blast without Ageless.

 

On some level, I knew that pinning my hopes for the set working ok on an Incarnate power to fix it, was not sound. But I was really trying to love the set. It's NEW, I haven't played a new set in years. I bent over backwards to give it every benefit of the doubt. But "your primary will have "manageable" endurance if you take a specific Incarnate power in level 50+... is not balanced.

 

Eventually on a lark, I hit an enemy with Black wand. This was FAR more effective than Hailstones (even though hailstones was well slotted). So then I started single-pulling mobs to test. Black Wand beat Cloudburst too! Even Nemesis Staff beat Cloudburst. Those can't be slotted. No procs, no tricks. They're *noticeably* better than Cloudburst (Storm Blast's rough 'Blaze' equivalent), even though I had Cloudburst 5-slotted.

 

At that point, I rearranged my bars, and just finished the last ancillary pool mission with Blackwand, Nemesis Staff, and Storm-secondary powers only. This worked considerably better than trying to utilize the Storm Blast power set (which had most of my slots & IO's in it).

 

I had some really gorgeous costumes for this character. And conceptually it's great. Also the animations are very pretty.

But Storm Blast has to be the weakest blast set I have ever used (and I've used them all). The numbers in Mid's are not even remotely similar to what I see in-game.

Storm Blast is made of pure nerf.

 

Normally, I'm very against any "drastic measures" when it comes to balancing. "tweak with a screwdriver, not a hammer", etc. And I'm not "buff-focused" either. I can think of multiple sets which would make the overall game more interesting if nerfed slightly. But Storm Blast is in a horrible state, and needs to be buffed (with a 10lb sledge hammer). For starters, Make Storm Cell cover 25 ft radius, maybe 30 ft (all of your ranged abilities rely on it). AND either A) stay where you put it, or B) follow you in a sensible manner. Then give Storm Cell  1/2 the cast time, and 1/2 the endurance cost.  In it's current state, it is never where you actually need it to be, and it's 2 seconds + 15.6 endurance to have it be there. Not that the benefit is particularly good. Then go through the rest of the set, and give everything -25% endurance cost and +25% damage. And then Buff Category Five to 2 or 3 fold it's current effectiveness. Do ALL of that, and it would still not make it a top tier blast set. Fire Blast for example, would still beat it by a fair margin. But Storm Blast would become "ok-ish", only if buffed that heavily.

 

If I thought every character had to be a min-maxing work of art, I wouldn't have like 50 characters. I'd have 3 or 4 which follow the meta. I even love to take underdog powersets, and see if I can find their hidden value with the right build. But there's a kind of minimal effectiveness needed to make a set "satisfying" to play. Maybe that's DPS, maybe it's debuffs, or buffs, heals, lots of ways for a set to shine. Something which makes you feel like you're doing "something". For my Storm/Storm corruptor, the only powers which give those feels are from the Storm secondary set. She'd literally be dramatically more effective just not taking any powers from her primary.

 

I'm going to bed. Tomorrow I'm going to respec to pull the IO's and money out of this character. And park it, in the hopes that someday it becomes viable.

Edited June 8, 2023 by DangerKitty

[Bionic_Flea]

3 hours ago, DangerKitty said:

I have a Storm/Storm corruptor.

 

I have a storm/storm corrupter that I find very capable. 

 

I'd be interested in showing you, or anyone, how it functions in game for me and I'd like to see how yours performs in the same content.

 

Maybe there's a tactic or slotting option difference or maybe it's different expectations.

Edited June 8, 2023 by Bionic_Flea

[Crysis]

1 hour ago, Bionic_Flea said:

 

I have a storm/storm corrupter that I find very capable. 

 

I'd be interested in showing you, or anyone, how it functions in game for me and I'd like to see how yours performs in the same content.

 

Maybe there's a tactic or slotting option difference or maybe it's different expectations.

 

Oh it can be -capable- in the way that almost any AT can be effective in this game.  At 50, no Incarnates, I can solo +4/x8 without much danger and pretty much can take down any spawns.  Against Carnies, against Malta, against Arachnos, all the “classic” PvE mobs that can cause challenges due to status effects.  But that’s -mainly- due to a) my Storm secondary throwing out a lot of damage and otherwise helping to pull aggro and b) I have allllllll the time in the world solo to get everything setup and working as the mechanics intended, for the full duration of the fights.  So capable, yes, I’ll agree with that.  

 

Now on a fast-moving team, far, far less effective.  The spawn is typically gone before my targeted AoE “multipliers” of Cat5 and Storm Cell are even capable of getting thrown down.  Same somewhat goes for my /Storm Lighting Storm big hitter.  Honestly, it makes me feel like I’m playing a MM on many iTrials or HM TF’s.  I just throw out what I can and often run petless as I can’t resummon and empower them fast enough to keep up.

 

So there’s effective, which it is, and overall efficacy of the Storm Blast attacks slot for slot, shot for shot, and play by play.  I’ll throw almost any other Corruptor builds I have onto a fast moving team and they will outperform the Storm/Storm/Dark.  

 

Like @DangerKitty, I parked mine at 50.  There’s little value in further investments of Incarnates as by that  point I’m just leaning on Incarnates to make it perform as well as many of my Corruptors do even without any iPowers.

Edited June 8, 2023 by Crysis

[Bionic_Flea]

47 minutes ago, Crysis said:

At 50, no Incarnates, I can solo +4/x8 without much danger and pretty much can take down any spawns.  Against Carnies, against Malta, against Arachnos, all the “classic” PvE mobs that can cause challenges due to status effects.  But that’s -mainly- due to a) my Storm secondary throwing out a lot of damage and otherwise helping to pull aggro and b) I have allllllll the time in the world solo to get everything setup and working as the mechanics intended, for the full duration of the fights.  So capable, yes, I’ll agree with that.  

 

Now on a fast-moving team, far, far less effective.

 

I also agree that it is a much better soloist than a team player because both Storm Cell and Cat5 take a while to ramp up.

 

But soloing anything at +4/x8 without incarnates is a far cry from @DangerKitty's barely being able to complete +0/x1 at level 40.

 

Your experience matches with mine, EXCEPT that I still feel I am contributing in fast moving teams with Freezing Rain debuffing and Direct Strike + Cloudburst adding some decent single target damage.  Occasionally, I will skip ahead to start a group with the full set up and then the team mops up.  Storm Blast is a bit like Traps and Gadgets -- great solo if you don't mind the set up but not great on a fast-moving steamroller team.

 

I think it could use a little tweak up.  My personal favorite idea is to give Intensify a bit more +damage and a bit longer duration.  Other ideas could also be an improvement.  But I don't think it's as bad or unplayable as some say.  Maybe it is for other ATs -- I haven't tried so I can't say -- but it's fine on a corrupter.

[lemming]

I'm enjoying my partially outfitted Storm/Dark Sentinel.  I find it works well with small teams since it does mess with the enemy mobs while the rest of the team brings the damage.  Was on an ITF with several other storm blasts and I didn't note any difference in the usual results.

 

The set definitely plays different which I think is messing with people's perceptions to it.  And I'm still figuring out strategies with it.

 

My only complaint is my end use which is just as much the usual Dark problem.

 

I'll have to get back to playing my Storm/Cold corrupter which I built for support and it does that well already.

[Crysis]

28 minutes ago, Bionic_Flea said:

 

Storm Blast is a bit like Traps and Gadgets -- great solo if you don't mind the set up but not great on a fast-moving steamroller team.

 

 

Better analogy than my petless MM one.  It's exactly like runing a /Traps Corruptor, but with your primary acting like that secondary.

 

I actually think Storm/Traps might be a great AV/GM hunting machine.  Solo, setup time available and long duration battles.

[drbuzzard]

It's a pretty set, and an interesting to play set. That doesn't make it a particularly powerful set. Got one to fiddy, and it will sit. It's just not worth the intricacies of playing when there's little payoff.