Avalanche_EU

The beauty of storm as a controller secondary imo is:

1) Coupling hurricane with an aoe immob for ridiculously easy herdicaning/acc debuffing.
2) Providing tornado and lightning storm with knockback protection by using an aoe immob every 10 seconds for silly aoe damage.

I recommend ice/storm/fire as grav immob doesn't protect from knockback apparently (rumour or true?) and heartily recommend ice because the -Rech of storm and ice stacks perfectly for big team protection (shiver spam, snow storm, arctic air, freezing rain, ice slick).

That and the beauty of 3 confuse SO's in arctic air, plus aoe immob, jack frost and storm pets is stupidly fast and safe killing. (although for large, hard spawns you need to set them up first with ice slick+freezing rain from out of line of sight to avoid you or jack getting one shotted by an alpha strike before you can get your arctic air on them for a while and let the confuses kick in)

Ice/Storm. Awesome synergy.

Hehe aye, that'll be the one!

Huraah. Screech for the win!! My FF/sonic is squishy no more!

I can solo with ease without taking a single hit now. PFF to eat the alpha, siren's song and then screech>attack chain each mob in turn. Bosses into a dispersion bubble first to be dealt with later. I frigging love sonic blast. Siren's Song has an ... insane... duration with 3 sleep SO's.

When I'm playing my defender and I see a fire/* blaster join the team I get so excited I can practically see my XP bar going up before we kill anything. Then I notice they have neither aim nor buildup and I start crying on the inside

Or I info them and their "T3H ULTRA FLAM3" name is misleading because they are actually NRG/NRG and will torrent things out of my debuffs before I can blink.

Heya. My 26 fire blaster has been on the shelf since a few months after release for some reason (probably because I called him Flaming Queen... boy do I regret that now) but I want to start playing him again. I just have a few questions about the ice secondary if someone would be kind enough to offer info.

I'm used to ice control shiver so I'm hoping it's at least a giant cone for blasters as well but how big is the slow effect? I was thinking of 2acc 3slow 1end as I want to utterly cripple movement and don't really want to spend time reapplying it more than once. How does it compare to controller shiver?

Secondly what are the figures on blaster chilling embrace? I'm not really interested in blapping as this character was all about big ranged aoe blasts and soft controls to help out the team. I don't particularly want to PvP either with this toon, I had 5 years as a PvP-centric fire wizard in DAOC so I've had enough of that already. I just want CE because.... well the defender in me just wants it.

Just a quick update but I'm 28 now and have oil slick with three recharge SO's and hasten. Damage SO's are yet to come but even unslotted for damage that puppy is everything it's advertised to be and makes up for the set's regrettable past.

I was very much enjoying roasting little quirky pumpkin heads yesterday in Croatoa. There are some nice patches of them outdoors and I was hunting down the big 10 man spawns and lighting them up!

Hi2u blasterfenders!

I have howl 3 damage slotted on my FF/sonic and TA/sonic. It's your only real aoe damage and a great 20% resist debuff for the team. I spam the thing like crazy on both toons although the TA/sonic feels more benefit because the mobs are all debuffed in the first place.

Shockwave is junk damage but I picked it up on my TA/Sonic because it's a great positioner that recharges incredibly quickly. For someone with lots of click AoE patches it's a godsend for keeping strays in the debuff zone or just for keeping things out of your face. It recharges about as fast as force bolt and it's a 100% cone knockback every time. It's also a fairly small knockback effect and not a giant cone. Good damage mitigation without being a complete spawn destroyer like gale can be in the wrong hands. A real hidden gem in the set imo.

The more */sonic defenders I play, the more I just fall in love with that set. Silly resist debuffage with the long attack chains, great single target damage for soloing and some lovely utility powers. It's hard to pick and choose what to drop!

Hmm if you have TP then it's nice to either put the storm up above the team and then put yourself behind the mobs with hurricane, or do the opposite and port behind the mobs to set up the storm and then back to the team with your hurricane, so that you get the most out of your storm and the knockback is working for you.

The former is riskier because you miss out on heals and buffs that are pbaoe and are a bit out on a limb at times. It can be better though because a lot of people knockback mobs and you're there to push them right back into the debuffs and your storm.

But like you said, it's not as big a focus on a controller. I went for 3 dam, 2 rech, 1 end on my defender as LS for me is more damage mitigation and damage and I want it available all the time with no hasten.

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Oh and a range or two in Tentacles works wonders in spreading the cone out a bit. Ditto with NightFall. Means the leading edge of the two cones is wider too. Especially useful for Tentacles.

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I just got my storm/dark to 16 this afternoon and the first thing I noticed about tentacles was how narrow and short the cone was. I had been expecting a shiver/gale and ended up with a flamebreath/frostbreath. Really wasn't impressed and thinking of shelving her since I went /dark especially for the tentacles. With no slots you have to have hurricane off and be reasonably close to even get a patch of tentacles about 3 mobs deep =(

How much is a range SO? Isn't it quite low like 15% I wouldn't mind seeing a /dark in action with three range SOs in tentacles to see if it's worth carrying on, seeing as I already have a 38 storm/elec on the go. I was quite disappointed in tentacles tbh. The overall damage was slightly less than the first blast in the set. It's minimal even with freezing rain running. It's 8 pulses of damage, 7 of which are smashing. =/

I'll probably end up with 2acc 3range 1rech in tentacles myself and get it slotted up asap.

I'm glad you liked the storm set so much. I did exactly the same thing when my ice/storm hit 32. Loved the storm set so much that I wanted it to be my primary focus and made a couple of storm defenders.

I would recommend trying out teleport. Being able to move around the fight without sending everything flying all over the place (especially in tight corridors etc.) is really invaluable. TPing behind the enemy to set up your lightning storm or being able to instantly get your big accuracy debuff exactly where it's needed in the click of a button is really helpful. After a while using it I've grown to love it and often TP about aggressively in combat now.

Is the damage minimal but fast ticking like tornado? I solo by using arctic air, frostbite and tornado and whilst tornados usually do very minimal damage as they knockback, if you can keep something knockback immune then the tornado ticks a rapid AoE dot. My AoE immob is slotted with accuracy and endurance reduction and is probably my most activated power simply to keep things knockback immune and trapped under a grinding, defence debuffing tornado and attacking each other.

Is it worth trying the same thing with bonfire/fire cage spam?

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It will prevent knockback for about 10 seconds. It's hardly the end of the world and that ice controller should take a chill pill.

[/ QUOTE ]If the mobs are high level, and the only control on them is ice slick, an AoE immob can easily get a few teammates killed.

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Way to quote half a post Max! I did give an example immediately after of how it is useful in some cases and then can be unwanted seconds later on the same set of mobs. Obviously, common sense tells you that if ice slick is the one and only thing from stopping "a few teammates getting killed" within 10 seconds then it's a situation where you don't gimp their slick.

Don't you always have a 5% chance to miss or hit with an attack on any mob of any level?

So even an auto-hit power is going to miss 1 in 20 mobs.

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Acid Arrow doesn't stack with itself, so doesn't need recharge reductions, but it migh benefit from defense debuffers.


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Aah I did wonder about that. The dot effect definately ticks twice as fast for a while after the second application but I wasn't sure about the debuff portion. I slotted it 3 acc 2 defdbf 1 rech.

EDIT: Just tested and yeah dot effect definately stacks. -Rez definately doesn't so I'm assuming -Def doesn't either. Disruptions stacked fine.

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Flash doesn't really do much for damage mitigation, IMO it's only good for a -per power. Glue will give you better better damage mitigation as it will stack with itself with recharges and hasten.


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Absolutely but I still felt that I should spend a couple of slots to get some up front and aggro free damage mitigation before the pull even happens. Is flash 8%? so about 12-13% with three SOs and maneuvers about the same? That's still 20-25%ish together on top of your other debuffs?

Ok I'm really enjoying it now. I had a blitz over the weekend and flew up to 24. The set does indeed suddenly spring to life once you can get 3 recharge SO's in hasten and all your debuffs. That repeat application makes all the difference in hard fights. You can utterly gimp the mobs with several disruption arrows and several acid's at once.

I've also decided to 3 slot flash and maneuvors, as minimal as the benefits are, to try and get some damage mitigation up front. Also decided to get tactics and.... VENGEANCE on this character. If reckless blasters/scrappers want to go AWOL then I can't do much to help them but they can provide the rest of us with a lovely buff when they faceplant. [img]/uk/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

I tried a sonic/sonic to 14 and the team's damage noticeably flies up on a target if you have the two sonic resonance debuffs and are spamming sonic blasts.

I do love the sonic blast set for defenders. My FF/sonic and TA/sonic both make a large difference to team damage when I'm assisting with blasts on the same target.

I just despair of this thing sometimes. One minute it's doing quite a large radius, in keeping with the brief, green cloud that appears on the floor after you use it and then the next minute it's barely hitting anything at all.

I know it's not an accuracy issue because you get Miss messages in the combat box and above the mobs heads when it misses and I even slotted it with six accuracy DO's (TA is only 18 so far) and tested on various spawns of grey mobs. The radius just seems to be completely random each time I use it.

On a side note, why are most of the TA powers just watered down versions of other powers? Poison gas looks like it might have been a decent set-defining, pulsing sleep/dmg debuff cloud back on the test server (like a ranged choking cloud but with slightly different effects). Acid arrow is just a miniature freezing rain with slightly lower values on the debuffs, smaller radius and without the -spd, -rch and knockdown. Disruption arrow is just tar patch with only 1/3rd of the effects. Glue is just snow storm without the -fly.

I look at some of the big combo powers on some of my toons and wonder why the TA powers are so light in comparison. Arctic Air, Darkest Night and Freezing Rain in particular make any of the TA powers look pretty weak in comparison. They need to change poison gas back to a pulsing cloud, completely change flash arrow into a decent accuracy debuff and give it a to-hit check and make the acid arrow radius the same as poison gas and change its recharge to the same as the other large aoe debuffs.

Even at 18 with lvl 20+ DO's I often *feel* like I'm making a huge difference to the team but I think it's just wishful thinking. If I go and solo a spawn of white minions it's a dangerous chore even with flash, glue, gas, disruption and acid. With a dark/sonic I can annihilate an entire spawn of yellow minions with orange lieuts just using darkest night, tar patch, and the occasional heal. With just one power I get fantastic damage mitigation and with another I get control and a 30% damage boost. *shrug*

I'm determined to get this character up to high level as I enjoy him and maybe the oil slick will be so outrageously good at damage mitigation and damage (if it's the same as ice slick then that's a lot of damage mitigation) that I'll forget the shortcomings of the set as a whole but right now I'm thinking they need to sort out TA!!

Crystal Sting. 18 TA/Sonic, Defiant.

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The sleep doesn't do -res neither does the knockback cone

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Doh, you're right. I don't know why I thought siren's song had -Res. I even remember reading the mouseover and being shocked that it had that effect. I must have slipped down to screech.

Seems that screech, howl, scream, shriek, shout is the biggest -Res attack chain you come up with outside the nuke? As the shout lands they are 80% debuffed and will hit 100% debuff for a split second after before most of them wear off.

-Def debuffs don't affect damage. It's the -Res component of freezing rain that increases damage and that is unslottable.

-Def just makes attacks hit more often and since blasters will be using aim and buildup before a nova, they are unlikely to miss anything anyway.

I agree with the others, slot freezing rain for 3 recharge and use it as often as possible. It's slightly less than permanent, even without hasten. 1 endrdx 3 rech works for my defender. I have it slotted 2 end 3 rech 1 defdbf on my controller though as the base debuff values are less than my defender and he has much worse endurace issues.

If by mez you mean sleep then it has zero protection from it. Disp bubble does hold, immob and disorient protection.

Devouring Earth, Freaks and Crey are all on my hate list because of it. They toggle drop me often, especially those damned mushroom heads.

As for magnitude, I really can't say. I have combat jumping and acrobatics running as well as dispersion bubble so I have extra against immob and holds.

I was really uninspired by the archery blast set and deleted my TA/A at 14 to make a TA/Sonic, who is now 13. I just find it really hard to play any secondary other than sonics nowadays. The stacked res debuffs on each blast, plus the control later in the set always make me feel like I'm boosting and supporting the team a lot more than the other sets.

Almost everything in the set debuffs res, including the cone sleep and the disorient. Only shriek has a very short duration debuff, the AoEs res debuffs last long enough for you to get several attack on afterwards. You can siren's song, screech, scream, shriek and then hit something with a shout that does 300 damage in your mid 30s. That's just obscene damage for a non snipe. Hell that's more obscene than my storm/elecs snipe on something with freezing rain on it! I don't even have debuffs in my FF/sonic primary but I know that people attacking the target I'm cycling blasts on are hitting something with 20-80% resist debuffs on it, just from my secondary. Crazy.

Oops sorry for derailing with a sonic love post. I just can't get enough of those zany blasts lately

EDIT: Isn't Power build up, amplify, siren's song, howl, dreadful wail just the best defender nuke you could imagine?

I'm a strong advocate of slotting 3 slows in snow storm. It may bring +0 minions to a crawl unslotted but add a few levels to the mobs and without 3 slows they will be running around like they are on crack.

Even with 3 slows mine barely touches +5s and above and you only have to be the lowest member of a team that is doing +2s/+3s to the highest member. Not an uncommon occurance.

It will prevent knockback for about 10 seconds. It's hardly the end of the world and that ice controller should take a chill pill. I often just use ice slick from out of sight to avoid an alpha strike from tough mobs and then immediately move in and use arctic air and an aoe immob anyway because I want the mobs standing up and attacking each other.

I would not skip Arctic Air. It's the best power in the set imo. Ice/Storm is more control than you could possibly wish for. Most of the time soloing (edit: and grouping to be honest) you can just get away with running SM and AA and then moving in for the kill, hitting frostbite and then taking things down one by one and later using Jack, tornado, LS and whatever AoE damage you pick up from your epic.

AA is really that good. Combined with frostbite it is perma aoe confuse, available at low level. I slotted 2 end 3 confuse.

Definately take AS and slot it up. If you do solo then that's all the damage you can do pre-Jack and even from 32-35 soloing is just too slow to even consider it. Jack often stands 20 feet away throwing ice bolts very slowly. Once you get tornado though it speeds up considerably. I don't have it myself but recall friend would speed up soloing a lot 32-35 as you can force Jack into melee range regularly without having to resummon him, which is on a very long timer.

Ok my storm/elec is envious of my ice/storm. He's been on the shelf for a while whilst I played my other characters but I took him out today and he hit 35 and got tornado....

I love my storm defender and tornado is fun and has its uses keeping things occupied or Def debuffing things that are a bit too purple but it's just sick on a controller with AoE immob. I can't imagine how fast it would be later on with lightning storm and ice storm as well. It's also really easy to position things with hurricane if you immob them first.

It just seems to me that tornado and lightning storm were balanced in damage on the expectation that mobs get knocked about. Throw in Arctic Air and an AoE immob and it's just silly what you can get away with.

I'm going to stop playing the controller for a bit. He's just too stupidly overpowered for me to enjoy playing right now and I know it would only get worse.