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 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).