?/Storm

[hexperfected]

I have read a few of the topics floating around the boards, but am still finding it difficult to select a primary for my Storm Controller. I have literally no experience with controllers and am looking at plant, earth, and gravity in roughly that order. 

 

From experience which pairing gels best with Storm, and is most effective solo while still contributing to a group?

[Nightmarer]

Grav/Storm is awesome, so is Earth/Storm being Plant/Storm on the third spot. Grav helps solo because it is quite an offensive set plus you get one of the funniest powers in game that allows you throwing lamp posts, gargoyles and pool tables to enemies: Propel

 

[Without_Pause]

Soloing for Level 1? Earth will output lower damage. Grav will be fine. Plant will be the stronger of the three. In terms of group play? Any. Really. In the day and ago of teams which seem to blow through tons of content, any. I had a Earth/storm on live. I'm still not sure in the day and age of where I used common IOs how I maintained End at a decent enough level to tolerate it because Storm is an End bar destroyer if you want it to be. But, my freaking word, it is an absolute control beast. I had a team literally knowing whatever they tried to do I could maintain it, see the group splitting three ways. Earth/storm was the build I used as revenge in the 30 Fir Bolg mission in Croatoa. Now that IO sets exists and I have gotten used to doing builds, it is one of the only builds from Live I have been tempted to redo, The argument could be made it has too much control. In the day and age of steamrolling, I can concede seeing the point. Honestly, you could do +4/x8 teams with intentionally having fewer people join and be way more than fine. You will be an absolute control god while doing some damage due to procs. 

 

I have a Plant/storm at 50. I need to get it a build because there's just so little downside to the build as an overall Controller. Storm backed by a solid control/damage set just adds to it. Again, if you are soloing at Level 1, I would deem this to be the better pick. I leveled it using common IOs. I don't recommend that. At least do the typical Stamina/Health IO slotting. 

 

I had a Grav/ta in the 30s. Grav is fine as a Controller set. Wormhole is about the only thing special about it. As a hater of long animations, I find the ridiculously fun but far too damn long animation of Propel not worth taking. 

 

TL; DR. My head says Plant. My heart says Earth.

[hexperfected]

What are the main differences then between Plant and Earth? I recognize earth is loaded with the -def debuffs. Does plant really do that much more damage? Does it just proc better?

[tidge]

Plant Control is a little OP because of Seeds of Confusion. Carrion Creepers can also be made very powerful. The latter is a serious "fire-and-forget" type power.

 

I want to add this: A Storm/Storm Defender offers very "Controller-like" play style that will get you all of the "storm" feels. Obviously it depends on slotting, but I accidentally took a level 30 Storm/Storm Defender into a level 30 radio mission solo at x8, and it had no trouble, but it was slow.

 

If you have never played Controllers, there are a few things to be aware of. Damage is quite mediocre. Pets don't really overcome this (they help), except at very small (i.e. default x1) content. Controllers can mitigate this by exploring how %damage can be used successfully in some of the primary/secondary powers. Controls themselves can be a mixed bag, because they are single-target or AoE, and enemy critters may have resistance and/or protection.

 

 

[Psyonico]

Earth is going to be the best from a control standpoint, simply because it has multiple strong AoE controls.

 

Plant is a close second in most content.  Seeds of Confusion is way overpowered against most enemies (note: Nemesis have inherent confuse protection). However, other than seeds your AoE control is a little lacking.  What makes up for this is Carrion Creepers, it's kind of control-y but also does decent damage.

 

I'm not going to comment on Gravity, as it just doesn't jive with me.  I like the looks of it, but I never really get into Gravity controllers.

[Without_Pause]

28 minutes ago, hexperfected said:

What are the main differences then between Plant and Earth? I recognize earth is loaded with the -def debuffs. Does plant really do that much more damage? Does it just proc better?

Seeds does damage via the AoE Confuse. Considering you can even proc it on top of that, and mobs can melt in short order. It has been regarded as Top 3 for damage for some time. Ill and Fire being the others. Something to think about, make a Earth/storm Controller and then a Plant Dom as Seeds can work on bosses with Domination running. You can essentially walk up to any mob and confuse it 'all' with a click.

[hexperfected]

38 minutes ago, tidge said:

Plant Control is a little OP because of Seeds of Confusion. Carrion Creepers can also be made very powerful. The latter is a serious "fire-and-forget" type power.

 

I want to add this: A Storm/Storm Defender offers very "Controller-like" play style that will get you all of the "storm" feels. Obviously it depends on slotting, but I accidentally took a level 30 Storm/Storm Defender into a level 30 radio mission solo at x8, and it had no trouble, but it was slow.

 

If you have never played Controllers, there are a few things to be aware of. Damage is quite mediocre. Pets don't really overcome this (they help), except at very small (i.e. default x1) content. Controllers can mitigate this by exploring how %damage can be used successfully in some of the primary/secondary powers. Controls themselves can be a mixed bag, because they are single-target or AoE, and enemy critters may have resistance and/or protection.

 

 

I did originally consider Storm/Storm, but I usually team with friends who like to just kinda. Smash through content? I had been led to believe that Storm Blast might not be the best for that just because of the mandatory setup with stormcell. How is it in your experience?

[tidge]

31 minutes ago, hexperfected said:

I did originally consider Storm/Storm, but I usually team with friends who like to just kinda. Smash through content? I had been led to believe that Storm Blast might not be the best for that just because of the mandatory setup with stormcell. How is it in your experience?

 

FWIW Storm Cell recharges kinda quick (I only have the Vigilant Assault set 2-slotted: Recharge/%Absorb and Damage/Recharge).

 

My teammates don't seem to care, and it doesn't really affect me. We casually/accidentally(?) got Valet on a +4 Market Crash, I don't know that any of us had Incarnates (I don't recall seeing any Lore pets). As a Defender, there isn't much of an onus to provide most of the damage... debuff and "control" is pretty good by itself. I think my slotting is just fine for damage and -resistance. The one compromise *I* make with my Storm/Storm (on teams) is that I try to limit how much Knockback I'll do. My usually teammates and I are all pretty chill about knockback, but I think it is reasonable to pay attention to what other players are doing.

 

For Blasters, I think Storm Blast gets knocked because it needs the Storm Cell to maximize DPS in ways that other Blaster primaries do not.

[Uun]

17 hours ago, hexperfected said:

I did originally consider Storm/Storm, but I usually team with friends who like to just kinda. Smash through content? I had been led to believe that Storm Blast might not be the best for that just because of the mandatory setup with stormcell. How is it in your experience?

I recently leveled a Storm/Storm corruptor and found it to be insanely fun. It benefits from Scourge due to all the DoT. While the setup with Storm Cell isn't an issue, the set performs best in longer fights because the debuffs and secondary effects build over time. 

[SeraphimKensai]

I have a lvl 50 plant/storm and a lvl 50 grav/storm.

 

Between the two of them the plant/storm is quite a bit more fun to play IMO because it's chaotic high damage fun. The Grav is significantly safer for hard lockdowns, but you lose the glory of Seeds.

 

The only real drawback I think a storm controller faces is endurance. With storm you want to maximize your recharge so you can maximize up times/stacks of carrion, freezing rain, tornado, lightning storms.

 

What I recommend doing is going leviathan as you can get water spout going as well, and get access to hibernate for a quick top off on endurance. Otherwise once you get Aegis, you should be set on End.

[tidge]

53 minutes ago, Uun said:

I recently leveled a Storm/Storm corruptor and found it to be insanely fun. It benefits from Scourge due to all the DoT. While the setup with Storm Cell isn't an issue, the set performs best in longer fights because the debuffs and secondary effects build over time. 

 

Agree. With a Storm/Storm character, the big addition to the weather arsenal is Category Five, which for non-Blasters will chew through x8 spawns relatively quickly (when it is available). The other powers aren't slouches, as they offer good powers for set-slotting and/or %procs. Don't sleep on slotting %-Resistance from the Annihilation set.

 

One piece of advice if you are considering leveraging %damage. Gale can take several %damage pieces, but it has a very low base Accuracy. I ended up slotting this with 2x Accuracy 50+5 IOs, and only two %damage pieces (%Lethal, %Fire) on my final build. I had experimented with boosting both Accuracy and Range on it, but I didn't need extra range because the storm powers work best if you draw enemies towards you. As I wrote above, I don't really sweat the Knockback in large spawns, and usually I have something to followup with if need to do so.

 

There is no real reason to take O2 Boost at level 1, so it is likely your build will have Gale in it at some point. I delayed O2 Boost until level 14 on my Storm/Storm, and have it slotted with just a single Heal IO.

 

If you opt for a Controller, I almost always skip the single-target Hold available at level 1. Single target Holds do offer some options for slotting, but my general attitude is that they are an inferior source of control/damage compared to what else you could do with the slots and power choice. If one of my builds has a T1/T2 single-target hold, it is usually because:

• I wanted a set bonus from a Fold enhancement set (4xBasilisk's Gaze, or 3xGaldiator's Net)
• I have a strategy to try to get stacking holds on some single-targets (combined with another Hold)
• There is no other option for damage for the character, so I might accuracy + %damage in a ST Hold.

[mistagoat]

/Storm is such a fun set!  You can't make a "wrong" choice. 

I will tell you that the one I had the most fun playing was the plant/storm. The unmitigated chaos you can inflict upon the enemy ranks is truly a beauty to behold! Just don't get addicted to /storm, I'm about to start my 6th one (Dark/Storm).

 

Cause chaos, have fun!

[Hjarki]

Mind/Storm/Energy. Telekinesis is arguably the best complement to Tornado - it gathers mobs into a tiny area and roots them in place so your Tornado/Lightning Storm can grind away.

[Argentae]

Plant/Storm is an awesome choice, one of my favorite builds and much fun to play.

 

Arsenal/Storm is also a great choice.

 

My current most-fun-to-play is Psinado, the Mind/Storm I built to try out the new Telekinesis mechanics. The changes in TK have fundamentally changed the set in ways that I think are best utilized by /Storm as Hjarki mentioned above. Both Tornado and Lightning Storm have small AOE attacks that benefit TREMENDOUSLY from having the whole spawn continuously clumped tightly together. It takes some care and practice to get the most benefit out of it, but it's totally worth it. 🙂

 

Mind/Storm was always decent, and the damage from /Storm helped Mind/ in the late game, while the single target control of Mind/ is second to none. Mind has a massive bag of tricks to pull from, and probably the best single target attack chain in the Controller Primaries. Also the king of zero aggo control, Mind is great fun to solo as long as you can add in good AOE damage.

 

Gale with KB -> KD (Sudden Acceleration or Overwhelming Force) and Force Feedback + Rech is an decent soft control and pretty reliably gives you 5 seconds of +100% recharge if you use it on large spawn. In the Early to mid game I also slot 3 Dmg Procs which don't go off a lot on small spawns, but do quite a bit on large spawns given the tiny amount of end it costs, how fast it recharges and how effective it is at boosting your recharge.

 

Happy to discuss more, but have to go do some things offline. 
I'm uploading my low cost build/leveling build for Psinado. Entirely capable of soloing +4/x8 spawns and leveled up largely on large spawns.

 

Psinado 50 low cost Controller (Mind Control - Storm Summoning).mbd

[mezzosoprano]

My vote, as always, goes to Plant/Storm.  It was my favorite character on the legacy servers and the first I created on Homecoming.  As mentioned above, it is a very end-heavy combo.  Anything you can do to get +recovery or +end will help.  My Incarnate build is very heavy on +recharge and on damage procs.  When going full-out, I need to alternate Ageless with Victory Rush to keep from bottoming out my blue bar.  I have Creepers slotted with 6 damage procs -- it routinely generates around 50% of my total damage.

 

When soloing, even at lower levels, Seeds of Confusion at level 8 is your every spawn control.  Combined with Steamy Mist at level 10 and a +stealth IO, you can saunter up to a spawn, find your best angle safely, hit Seeds, then spam Roots until they're all dead.  For harder targets, I add Entangle and Arcane Bolt.  Freezing Rain at 16 and Creepers at 22 add nicely to your damage, while Tornado and Lightning Storm will add the the chaos at higher levels.

 

On teams, let your friends take the alpha, then spam all your favorites -- Freezing Rain, Creepers, Roots, Lightning Storm, and Tornado.  

 

 

Sequoia - Controller (Plant Control - Storm Summoning).mbd

[Tacheyon]

My Earth/Storm Controller was my first 50 from when I started in 2004.

 

It starts off very slow I am not going to lie.  But you will become a powerhouse late in your build.  Lots of area controls both Hard and Soft.  Your pet may look like Poo but he is as hard as Diamond.

 

Then again as people have said, Storm makes everything good.  But Earth is one of (if not the) strongest control set in the game.  Arsenal maybe a very close second, but I'll always bet on Earth.

[Frozen Burn]

Storm is good with anything.  Earth, Grav, and Plant are all great primaries.  But I love my Illusion/Storm the most of my Stormie controllers.