Storm blast…

[Thrax]

First blaster, or any toon with a ranged attack set as primary or secondary, that I’ve ever gotten the t9 attack and wanted to respec out of it. Just an absolute shit power.

 

Just let that sink in. You get a t9 power, slot it up, and even then want to get rid of it. 

 

And Jet Stream sucks too. I get the point of jet stream, but it just doesn’t work. If mobs are just a bit outside of the storm cell they are launched way out.  Cat5 just sucks though. 

Edited May 4, 2023 by Thrax

[Wavicle]

Category Five is great. It may be you're not using it right? You have to cast it, THEN hit Intensity, and then keep attacking with your other abilities.

If you just hit it and then sit there it is weak, but that's not how it's supposed to work.

Jetstream is a bit weak as a cone and perhaps can be respeccd out of at high levels.

[Thrax]

Yes. By the time you do that stuff and it builds up, mobs are dead unless it’s an av. Im using as right as I can, it just straight sucks. 

[Camel]

 

7 minutes ago, Thrax said:

Yes. By the time you do that stuff and it builds up, mobs are dead unless it’s an av. Im using as right as I can, it just straight sucks. 

My Storm/Storm Corrupter is level 50 and I've taken it through all of the Task Force Commander TFs, several +4 kill most ITFs and a handful of fire farms ... and I can say that neither Category 5 nor Jet Stream sucks. Are they a bit wonky? Sure. Sometimes I find myself not casting Category 5 because it would essentially be wasted... But oftentimes it floors the mobs my team and I are working on. It definitely shines on fire farms and +4, end game content and is a bit lackluster on +0 content for the reasons you stated. But even then, I did a Manticore TF where I would stealth to the end of the "defeat security chief and his men" missions and I could wipe the floor with them simply by casting Category 5 and popping off a few blasts.

Category 5 is actually one of the highest damaging nukes in the game, it's just very situational at times. Jet Stream? It's a perfectly fine power and even if only a few of the mobs are outside of your Storm Cell, that's certainly not a bad trade off and with a properly slotted Storm Cell you can reposition it almost every mob anyways. I'm not saying Storm Blast 100% doesn't need any tweaks, the thing about Storm Blast is that it requires a fair amount of positional play and skill to be optimal... but like I said, I've taken my Storm/Storm Corrupter from Posi 1 to Numina and beyond and have decimated mobs every step of the way. 

Your points aren't invalid. I struggle to find opportunities to use C5 on +0 content with a full team, but I can assure you that it shines in a variety of situations. C5 decimates the towers at the end of the ITF, it decimates mobs in fire farms and it decimates mobs while soloing. It just takes some time to get used to and properly utilize.

[Wavicle]

Yea, it shines fighting very tough mobs. If everything is dead before you've got your stuff out then what you're fighting is too easy.

[Thrax]

7 minutes ago, Wavicle said:

Yea, it shines fighting very tough mobs. If everything is dead before you've got your stuff out then what you're fighting is too easy.

Or what you’re bringing to the table is too slow. 

[Wavicle]

the set brings a whole lot of safety that can be applied even before combat begins.

Definitely, Cat 5 does not suck, but it is totally possible that the playstyle it offers is not what you're interested in.

[Thrax]

I’ve had a few other blasters and sentinels. Buildup nuke dead. Not let’s place storm cell, the cat5, they shooting back now btw, then intensify, then some more attacks, all the while they still shooting at you. 
 

Secondaries obviously matter. Mine is /earth on blaster. Coupe melee for when they get close and aura that adds slow. 

[Thrax]

Yes, the playstyle I’m looking for in a blaster primary is to blast them to death quickly. Not use 3-5 powers together to juggle them around while they maybe die and don’t shoot back at me too much, while the rest of the team is two groups ahead. 

[Wavicle]

Storm Cell doesn't cause aggro and adds a sizable -Tohit debuff.

With other blasters and sentinels it's build up, nuke, and those mobs that are in range are probably dead, and then you have nothing for a while. With Storm you have significantly increased damage for large periods of time. It's a different playstyle.

Earth Manipulation should be a fine pairing with storm.

[Thrax]

Think storm cell doesn’t do -to hit. It’s minus movement and recharge I believe. Guess cat5 isn’t as bad as I made it out to be. If it wasn’t for the snipe animation I’d probably have already dropped the set honestly. 

[Frosticus]

2 hours ago, Thrax said:

Think storm cell doesn’t do -to hit. It’s minus movement and recharge I believe. Guess cat5 isn’t as bad as I made it out to be. If it wasn’t for the snipe animation I’d probably have already dropped the set honestly. 

Storm cell in and of itself does very little. The no aggro portion for a blaster is:

-4.9% tohit debuff

-7% recharge

-14% slow

-70% max speed

None of which is enhanceable.

 

When you aggro storm cell on to a target(s) is when the stronger debuffs potentially kick in. But the fact that storm cell doesn't cause aggro in and of itself isn't much of a selling point for me personally

[Camel]

I think Storm Blast really shines on Corrupters. All the procs from Storm Cell and C5 can Scourge, as well as the DoT damage portion from C5. I’ve seen my DoTs go as high as 15 when C5 gets rolling. I’ve also seen the damage procs go as high as 125 when lighting within C5 procs. Both of which can double in damage on a low health enemy.

[Wavicle]

5 hours ago, Thrax said:

Think storm cell doesn’t do -to hit.

Yes it does.

[Wavicle]

24 minutes ago, Camel said:

I think Storm Blast really shines on Corrupters. All the procs from Storm Cell and C5 can Scourge, as well as the DoT damage portion from C5. I’ve seen my DoTs go as high as 15 when C5 gets rolling. I’ve also seen the damage procs go as high as 125 when lighting within C5 procs. Both of which can double in damage on a low health enemy.

best on Corr and Sentinel, yea, I agree.

[Thrax]

34 minutes ago, Wavicle said:

Yes it does.

If you right click it it doesn’t say it does, but if you click on info and scroll it does do it, my bad. 

[Chronicler J]

On 5/3/2023 at 11:15 PM, Thrax said:

Yes. By the time you do that stuff and it builds up, mobs are dead unless it’s an av. Im using as right as I can, it just straight sucks. 

 

Maybe we finally need better tiering on mobs at 35-50? The old tiering is archaic. Minions and Lieutenants are pathetic. 

[Thraxen]

Others have said this, but I think it is best played on a corr or maybe def.  It is just seems like it is more of a crowd control and debuff set than a blast set.  Just having a T9 that you don't want to use all the time seems sad. And this is from someone who loves and loved full auto on live, and here before and after buffs.  Even dual pistols T9 you wanna use it whenever up.  This set, half the time, or more, seems like eh why bother with it now.  I'm not deleting it, at least yet, but I'm not playing the blaster anymore.  

[Wavicle]

Just now, Thraxen said:

Others have said this, but I think it is best played on a corr or maybe def.  It is just seems like it is more of a crowd control and debuff set than a blast set.  Just having a T9 that you don't want to use all the time seems sad. And this is from someone who loves and loved full auto on live, and here before and after buffs.  Even dual pistols T9 you wanna use it whenever up.  This set, half the time, or more, seems like eh why bother with it now.  I'm not deleting it, at least yet, but I'm not playing the blaster anymore.  

Are you only playing on big teams? Solo and on small teams I use it every time it’s up.

[Thrax]

Yes, I don’t solo at all and usually play with full teams. I like the MMO aspect. 

[biostem]

3 minutes ago, Thraxen said:

Others have said this, but I think it is best played on a corr or maybe def.  It is just seems like it is more of a crowd control and debuff set than a blast set.  Just having a T9 that you don't want to use all the time seems sad. And this is from someone who loves and loved full auto on live, and here before and after buffs.  Even dual pistols T9 you wanna use it whenever up.  This set, half the time, or more, seems like eh why bother with it now.  I'm not deleting it, at least yet, but I'm not playing the blaster anymore.  

I've been playing my storm/ninjitsu sentinel through end game stuff recently.  I use storm cell and category five as often as possible.  It's about setting up a kill zone then using your other powers to get the lightning strikes and such to go off.  It's very similar to how ice blast has ice storm and blizzard.  The difference is that your other powers set off additional sources of damage...

[Wavicle]

I play mostly duo with a RL friend and Storm is very effective in that environment.

Edited May 6, 2023 by Wavicle