Crystal Storm (Arsenal/Storm): A Chronology

[Argentae]

Temp post below. Had to move the draft text from my phone. I’ll edit the below and finish it later.

 

Sorry for my long absense from the forums, lots of work and home landscaping project related complexity that saps my ability to spend time typing things up.

 

The most recent build that I've taken to full completion has been the Ars/Storm I mentioned in another thread that I wanted to try in contrast to Ars/Dark to see which is objectively more powerful. Jury is still out on that comparison, as I haven't gotten back to any character but Crystal Storm (CS) for months. That fact right there says something about the subjective experience. I'm not sure that CS is more "powerful" than Dark Crystal (DC) my Ars/Dark character, but I will say I have enjoyed playing her more than than anything I've played in quite a while. I have NOT tried out how she does against A/Vs yet, been having too much fun fully optimizing the end game build.

 

So I'm going to dive into my usual musings about playing CS, along the way I'll try to explain what I enjoy about playing CS, and what I have found useful.

 

First off, something I've seen several times is people being underwhealmed with the damage of Arsenal Control, and I *think* I see at least one of the reasons it comes up frequently. 
A lot of the time people that are underwhealmed by the damage output are coming from experience with Arsenal Control as a Dominator rather than as a Controller. Containment damage really changes the way the set plays, and nowhere more dramatically than the pet. 
I call mine A-10 Killer Tank. Cause he is. Seriously. I'll get into the reasons below, but he gets containment damage, and it racks up WHILE improving his ability to tank the aggro. 
Arsenal plays different on a Controller, and has a lot of synergies with Controller secondaries that I suspect are missing with the Assault sets. I have not played it AS a Dominator yet, so this is speculation, but I've played Ars/Traps, Ars/TA, Ars/Dark, and Ars/Storm all into the the mid to late incarnate levels, and it's a good ride every time. Definitely above the Controller Primary average, every one soloed most of the way via X8 spawns at varying +1/2/3/4 levels depending on build and maturity.

 

SO lets jump into Ars/Dark specifically. What do I love about playing Ars/Storm. 
Hmmmm... Well...
To start with, it plays a bit like Ars/TA with more damage and survivability. 
To some of you, like Sandwich, that may seem like an odd statement, but I hope it makes sense by the end. :-)

 

Strengths

 

Indirect fire: CS is an indirect fire monster, this is one of the things that makes her play a lot like Ars/TA She's not as brokenly OP as Dionysus my Plant/Dark character, and occasionally some lucky hits will get through, or something unexpected occurs and I have to adapt on the fly. Nothing new for Controllers, but I built CS specifically with some toughness in mind, and she can generally take a hit better than most of my high def/-tohit based characters, and without using Earth's embrace to do it. She is very good at pulling back and regrouping when needed.

 

Toughness: I have both Rune of Protection and the Destiny Clarity ability that rotate through as mez/status protection, and Rune is two slotted with the +Hit Point resistance unique and a 50+5 +res IOs. Shark Skin provides good Smash/Lethal/Cold resistance and I have Hibernate standing by to turtle up and let A-10 pull some aggro away from me while my hords of pet/psuedo pets do their magic. Dropping Tear Gas on the spawn applies a -20% dmg debuff to everything as well which makes my damage resistance much more effective accross the board. Hurricane applied roughly a -50 ToHit penalty and pretty close to prevents melee attacks

 

Corner pulls: Does well, though not as well as /Dark. Snow Storm not being slottable for range is a headscratcher for me. Means I often use single target attacks to pull, as 80ft often is close enough for the whole spawn to spit hate at me at once, and it lacks the mitigation that Darkest Night brings to the table. On the flip side, Freezing Rain is great with Achilles Heel in it, and helps ensure everything gets hit pretty much every time while making proc damage do even more.

 

Knockdown/Fish flopping: 1st tier fish flopping facilitator. Fire/Storm does well with Bonfire (+KB->KD) and FR, Oil Slick is like FR on steroid with it's damage component, I tend to think that /Storm has so much KD potential (KB-KD turns Gale, Tornado, Lightning Storm, and even Hurricane into strong KD sources), add in Nitro's KD patch and Waterspout's KD and there is a whole lot of mobs flopping on the ground instead of doing anything constructive to stop me.

 

Momentum: I built CS with a focus on a lot of FF +Rech proc firing to boost my recharge, it works. Once I'm rolling, having a sudden X8 +4 spawn add/ambush droppped on me is almost irrelevant. Until I run out of End, I'm just piling on the hurt and mitigation on an AOE basis.

 

Back is covered: A-10, Hurricane, and Lightning Storm(s) have got my back. It’s fairly common for a mob or two to get past my patches of doom and get behind me. I generally ignore them as Hurricane and my crew keep them busy, often killing them without my interaction.

 

Gale: this is a diamond in the rough in the building. More on that below.

 

A-10 / Tri-cannon. My new favorite Controller pet. Well behaved, tough as nails and does a great job soaking up an alpha strike or pull aggro off me.

 

Excellent layers of different mitigation. Not a one-trick pony at all, unless that trick is just pseudo pets that do damage.  When focused on a single target the raw damage output is substantial, esp with A-10 getting containment damage.

 

Blind fighting: Similar to indirect fire, I can fight almost as well when blind as I can when I can see.

 

Spawn bosses in the corner pocket: When the geometry supports piling bosses up in a corner, all the KD piling on them keeps them there pretty reliably while Hurricane locks them into a corner and unable to hit the broad side of a barn even when they aren't flopping. As Tornado, Lightning storm and Waterspout all do small AOE, tight packing is very efficient at taking them down fast. This is basically just /Storm being /Storm, but it's definitely a strength.

 

FX: Giant Crystal! I love the fact that once I've spewed out all my pet/pseudo pets and the blue is running low, or when I've taken enough damage that preventative medicine is keeping me on my feet, I disappear into a giant crystal and laugh at their puny efforts to harm me. It's totally in keeping with the character, works better than on most builds. /Storm is always visually impactful. While I miss the targetting point on the floor provided by Tar Pit, it's still visually quite good.

 

Weaknesses

 

Endurance... Gasp... Gasp... recovery: This is a /Storm with a high +Rech build. Endurance is a default issue. I ran Vigor in the Alpha slot for a bit, but it's still not enough. Went back to my default of Intuition and built a lot of (sometimes clever) Endred into my build as well as all the normal Heal set uniques and use Hibernate as the quick recharge.

 

Low Healing: O2 isn't the strongest heal, and Spirit Ward is more effective with A-10. I played with O2 in the build for quite some time but finally decided that the slot was better used elsewhere. I I wanted to pick it back up I'd probably drop Nitro. The lack of a self heal is addressed by the damgage resistance mentioned in toughness above, Preventative Medicine +Absorb, and the Giant Crystal of restoration (Hibernate)!

 

No great +def (like Fade or FF  generator) and the -ToHit being focused in Hurricane makes getting close to the def cap challenging, in fact I settled for less ranged def than I wanted because of the trade offs needed. 

 

No self buffs: /Storm, nuff said.

 

Powers breakdown:

 

Power	Level	Effect	Thoughts
Tranquilizer	1	Ranged, Moderate DMG(Toxic), Foe Sleep, -SPD	Love it. Great blast and the side effect sleep allows it to slot the Sandman unique heal IO. Good ability to take procs, sleep will keep a trouble mob out of it for a long time in the right circumstances. I take it and use it heavily on the way up. In this particular build I ultimately swapped it out for Arcane  Bolt to get to Rune. But that’s rare for my builds, I generally keep single target sleep as a blast. Straight dmg SOs till early teen then an Acc/Dmg and procs
Cryo Freeze Ray	1	Ranged, Moderate DMG(Cold), Foe Hold, -SPD, -Recharge, -Fly	Core power. 6 slot it and fill with 5 Dmg procs and a Hold/Dmg. Will do Acc/Dmg till I have significant global +Acc. This is the mainstay of your ST damage treat it as such.
Sleep Grenade	2	Ranged (Location AoE), Moderate DMG(Toxic), Foe Sleep, -SPD, -Recharge, -Fly	Solid AOE damage with useful secondary effects. Use AFTER Flash Bang for containment. I slot with a 5 pack of Posi Blast asap, then generally swap it out for an appropriate purple set. This is a damage power, not a sleep, treat as such. Procs are uneven in firing, I find direct damage works best.
Liquid Nitrogen	6	Ranged (Location AoE), DoT(Cold), Foe Knockdown, -SPD, -Jump	I also 5 slot this with Posi Blast on the way up, it does enough damage over its lifetime to make it worth it. Once I hit end game respec, this is a good one to  leave at just the base slot and here that slot is 50+5 Endred. You still get the KD from the patch, and you have a lot of other things you need slots for.
Cloaking Device	8	Toggle: Self Stealth, +DEF(All)	L
Smoke Canister	12	Ranged (Location AoE), Foe Confuse, -Perception, -ToHit
Flash Bang	18	Ranged (Targeted AoE), Minor DMG(Energy), Foe Disorient, -ToHit
Tear Gas	22	Ranged (Location AoE), Foe Hold, -DMG
Tri-Cannon	26	Build Tri-Cannon: Ranged, DMG(Lethal)

[Argentae]

Current Endgame build attached below.
I'll update this later as well.

 

Controller CrystalStorm Rune (Arsenal Control - Storm Summoning).mbd