Most ranged defender?

[oedipus_tex]

3 hours ago, Obitus said:

This is my take too, for what it's worth.  Hurricane used to be considered the core Storm power, in part because the leveling game was slower, in part because we didn't have IOs to provide DEF and +recharge to juice long recharge powers like Lightning Storm, and in part because powers like Tornado were largely unusuable unless you had an AoE immobilize.  (And sometimes even then.)

 

Now Hurricane is largely incidental.  As Hjarki said, it can do some fun and impressive things when you're lower level, and it can help you through the occasional bad spot even later on - but it's entirely possible, even potentially quite pleasant, to ignore Hurricane for a Stormer's entire career.  Most of the time, it's more trouble than it's worth to use Hurricane proactively.  Better to build so that you don't feel you have to.

 

The signature powers in Storm go like this:  Freezing Rain > Tornado > Lightning Storm.  Toss Steamy Mist in there somewhere - hard to rank it directly.  Everything else ranges from optional to eminently skippable.

 

The TL;DR of all of my ramblings is that Storm is exceedingly well suited to a ranged-only play style; it might even be one of the best Defender sets for that purpose.  Actually, Hurricane only reinforces this conclusion, because its main use is to keep insistent melee opponents out of your face.

 

 

I think this is true, but then we are responding to a somewhat arbitrary question: 'What is the most ranged Defender?' The question doesn't really have a direct answer. It depends a lot on what yu choose to call 'most ranged.'

 

Storm is complicated because:

- Hurricane is a PBAoE

- Hurricane causes Repel and Knockback

I suppose thats an argument for it being both a PBAoE set and a ranged set in one package. 

 

Given the question though, I would still consider Empathy, Thermal, etc 'more ranged' than Storm, to the degree that such a thing is measurable. 
 

[ParaBruce]

The example of Storm Summoning demonstrates just how much I didn't have in mind when asking the question. 🙂 Upon consideration, I think that powers where there's knockback, knockdown, and/or repelling at the margin still feel ranged to me, but that's so thoroughly subjective.

[Hjarki]

1 hour ago, Yoru-hime said:

I've seen it suggested here and there and I'm curious how they run that it's not considered useful. That is my bread and butter, every single mob power once I've got the recharge for it. It's both major to-hit debuff plus fear to break up the return fire. The cone is quite large too so it's not like you've got to do much to hit a whole group with it.  In small groups with no meat shield, I lead the charge with this to absorb the alpha.

Control effects are in general not very useful in the 50+ IO set world. The control effects you do see being used tend to be "...and also controls" effects like Tornado or Bonfire that are primarily sources of damage.

 

You also have to consider that many control effects are actively counterproductive because they interfere with melee AE. Unlike ranged dps, your melee need those mobs packed tight. If you're not very careful how you're using your AE control effects, you end up creating a situation where you turn an easy AE fight into a long, drawn-out single target one.

[Redlynne]

45 minutes ago, ParaBruce said:

Upon consideration, I think that powers where there's knockback, knockdown, and/or repelling at the margin still feel ranged to me, but that's so thoroughly subjective.

The difference between playing Keep Away and playing Keep Your Enemies Closer.

[Obitus]

1 hour ago, oedipus_tex said:

 

 

I think this is true, but then we are responding to a somewhat arbitrary question: 'What is the most ranged Defender?' The question doesn't really have a direct answer. It depends a lot on what yu choose to call 'most ranged.'

 

Storm is complicated because:

- Hurricane is a PBAoE

- Hurricane causes Repel and Knockback

I suppose thats an argument for it being both a PBAoE set and a ranged set in one package. 

 

Given the question though, I would still consider Empathy, Thermal, etc 'more ranged' than Storm, to the degree that such a thing is measurable. 
 

Yeah, it depends on the parameters of the question.  Storm will perform much better in a ranged-damage role than Empathy or Thermal, for example - so even if Storm had five skippable PBAoE effects (on top of the four key powers I already mentioned), you could make a case for it.

 

On the other hand, if all you care about is whether the set functions in a range or positionally agnostic fashion, then Empathy or Thermal are fine answers.  I would lean in the direction of the former interpretation, personally; it's not that Empathy or Thermal are particularly well-suited to a ranged play style, but rather that they don't care one way or the other.  The main consideration for those sets isn't whether you want to stay at range; it's whether you want to be geared towards ally-only buff powers. 

 

By contrast, Storm is straightforwardly a damage set, specifically a ranged damage set, designed to keep foes on their butt and out of your face while you wreck them.  Though of course I should have mentioned that you really do need Sudden Acceleration procs to make e.g. Tornado work as a consistent damage power.

[ParaBruce]

5 minutes ago, Redlynne said:

The difference between playing Keep Away and playing Keep Your Enemies Closer.

Yes, thank you!

2 minutes ago, Obitus said:

Yeah, it depends on the parameters of the question.  Storm will perform much better in a ranged-damage role than Empathy or Thermal, for example - so even if Storm had five skippable PBAoE effects (on top of the four key powers I already mentioned), you could make a case for it.

Yeah, I like that distinction, and didn't have it in mind in the OP but would have. 🙂

[oedipus_tex]

11 minutes ago, Obitus said:

Yeah, it depends on the parameters of the question.  Storm will perform much better in a ranged-damage role than Empathy or Thermal, for example - so even if Storm had five skippable PBAoE effects (on top of the four key powers I already mentioned), you could make a case for it.

 

On the other hand, if all you care about is whether the set functions in a range or positionally agnostic fashion, then Empathy or Thermal are fine answers.  I would lean in the direction of the former interpretation, personally; it's not that Empathy or Thermal are particularly well-suited to a ranged play style, but rather that they don't care one way or the other.  The main consideration for those sets isn't whether you want to stay at range; it's whether you want to be geared towards ally-only buff powers. 

 

By contrast, Storm is straightforwardly a damage set, specifically a ranged damage set, designed to keep foes on their butt and out of your face while you wreck them.  Though of course I should have mentioned that you really do need Sudden Acceleration procs to make e.g. Tornado work as a consistent damage power.

 

 

I was thinking about the question more terms of the possibility of lost utility. Hurricane and several others powers are technically skippable, but they are also decent enough powers that I can imagine a scenario where you might not have them and wish you did. 

[SmalltalkJava]

On 8/8/2019 at 7:08 PM, Hedgefund said:

With the Sudden Acceleration kb2kd  proc in Repulsion Field, I put my bubbler on the front lines and play the role of a 1-man Earthquake.

Does that actually tend to work at high levels.   I tried doing that with repel on my MM and it didn’t seem to work that well.  Granted on MM it’s 2.88 mag instead of 3.   Do you slot additional KB enjancers on there also?    What slotting do you use on it beside Sudden Acceleration KB->KD?

[Hedgefund]

2 minutes ago, SmalltalkJava said:

Does that actually tend to work at high levels.   I tried doing that with repel on my MM and it didn’t seem to work that well.  Granted on MM it’s 2.88 mag instead of 3.   Do you slot additional KB enjancers on there also?    What slotting do you use on it beside Sudden Acceleration KB->KD?

Just the kb2kd and an endurance redux basic IO, it's an end hog.  

 

I have to confess to overhyping for effect.  It's good but I'm not literally a walking (or hovering) Earthquake like I originally said.  It's some additional mitigation FFers couldn't utilize before, but if someone said it's not worth the additional endo expenditure, I'd nod my head in understanding (not necessarily agreement).

[SmalltalkJava]

1 minute ago, Hedgefund said:

Just the kb2kd and an endurance redux basic IO, it's an end hog.  

 

I have to confess to overhyping for effect.  It's good but I'm not literally a walking (or hovering) Earthquake like I originally said.  It's some additional mitigation FFers couldn't utilize before, but if someone said it's not worth the additional endo expenditure, I'd nod my head in understanding (not necessarily agreement).

I understand.  Mitigation is mitigation.   A hit not taken is is the best hit to have.

 

- side note:  as I was typing this I misspelled mitigation.  And it auto corrected to:  “Mitigation is motivation”  Which could be true

[ParaBruce]

Mitigation should be motivating, at least. 🙂

 

[Darkir]

1 hour ago, SmalltalkJava said:

I understand.  Mitigation is mitigation.   A hit not taken is is the best hit to have.

 

- side note:  as I was typing this I misspelled mitigation.  And it auto corrected to:  “Mitigation is motivation”  Which could be true

I like to slot 1 end redux, 1 kb to kd, and one FF recharge proc in powers like this. In terms of endurance, you either need to have a way to deal with it or use the ageless destiny, otherwise it may not be worth the endurance. This way it adds some mitigation and minor control, while helping recharge. 

[Hedgefund]

1 hour ago, SmalltalkJava said:

I understand.  Mitigation is mitigation.   A hit not taken is is the best hit to have.

 

- side note:  as I was typing this I misspelled mitigation.  And it auto corrected to:  “Mitigation is motivation”  Which could be true

I would buy this poster at Successories.  Maybe have an image of a kitten knocking things off a table to illustrate this.