Draggynn

Well, a lot of this will of course depend on playstyle, and if you find you don't need the endurance all the better. It frees up more slots for other things. I assure you though this would not be enough endurance for me, but then I also run 2 leadership toggles and have more recharge than you do, so if you can get buy with this, all the better. I will stand by my prediction though, that as you work towards this build you will be looking for little ways to eek out more endurance.

I find in higher levels I am much more susceptible to stuns than I am to holds. That's why I recommend going Clarion and dropping Acrobatics, but that's a longer term goal to look towards. I would keep until you get teir 3 Clarion and can make it permanent. Of course, if you find mag 2 hold protection is sufficient, then that frees up more options for your destiny slot. It's always a question of trade off.

Snow Storm and Thunderclap both work well with 1 slot (end and acccuracy respectively) so I would probably pick up one of them (I would choose SS).

again it's a playstyle issue, depending on which powers you use. I would stick it in Tornado though. But if you don't use Tornado, obviously that is a poor choice. You could also use that slot to stick a proc in Freezing Rain or another recharge in Amplify.

To be honest I am not certain that Soulbound Allegiance will proc in Tornado, although it probably will. But even if it does, you would get more damage out of Tornado by slotting it for damage than you would with the proc. Based on the way the proc works in other pseudopets, there will be a chance for the proc to fire on you when summon Tornado, and then the proc has a chance to fire and effect Tornado every 10 seconds. But the proc only has a 16% chance to fire. Assuming the proc does fire in Tornado, that results in an average of (80% damage boost for 10 seconds: 3*.166*6.67*2*10*.8)=52 additional damage. (Assuming the time when it hits nothing balances the times it hits multiple things). This results in a 12% damage boost, so you are better off just slotting Tornado for the damage.

I generally find 8 points of KB protection is sufficient, but if you feel you need 12, go for it.

I would stick some endurance reduction in FA rather than the chance for build up. It has a 5% chance to fire which means on average it will fire every 200 seconds. And in my experience, it usually doesn't fire at times that are useful for me. And FA is expensive to run (more than hurricane). Also thanks to FR you don't really need the +accuracy or the +to-hit so I would probably drop it since really all you're getting is the +perception, so you can just stick the +perception proc in amplify.


Xor, this build is also going to run into endurance trouble. I would swap out the end/rech in stamina for a pure endurance in stamina, and find room for the miracle unique in health.

If you're planning on putting this much into a build and building for a defense, there should be a steadfast protection 3% defense IO in there somewhere (it's only 1 alignment merit). I would also go for the Clarion Destiny and drop acrobatics eventually although I'm not sure what I would pick up, and you would need to find 2 IOs for KB protection (1 in SS is easy, the other one you would need to play around with more).

Also, I'm not a fan of Positrons Blasts in FR just for the recharge bonus, especially since you want FR up as often as possible and 26% recharge is WAY too low. If you're intending on fighting tougher enemies or teaming, I would also encourage the Achilles Heel proc. See the link in my sig for more Freezing Rain information.

Just a couple quick thoughts before I jet off to bed.

I'm going to go ahead and predict endurance troubles even with the Cardiac Alpha. At the very least you need another endurance slot in Stamina. The Miracle unique in health is also a good idea (Do those tip mission and save up alignment merits, the Miracle unique is 2 merits). I would probably take those slots from Crush and Propel.

Trying to keep changes to a minimum as requested:
More recharge in powers is a good thing (although you will find more recharge means endurance management becomes more important.):
Change the DefDebuff/End in Freezing Rain to a End/Recharge (I would do the Def/Recharge, but I think you may need all the end reduction you can get).

I would also try to get more recharge in Lightning Storm. Yes, this will be at the cost of endurance, but hopefully with the some of the endurance optimizing above this will be less of an issue.

I would also try to get more slots in Steamy Mist for additional Endurance Reduction and resistance or defense (personal preference) if you have more of those "extra slots" to stick somewhere.

Any way I could convince you to take consume over fire shield or RotP? That would certainly take a step towards eliminating some of your endurance trouble.

I find the league sound more intrusive for some reason (maybe just new) and 24 people generate a lot more chatter than 8.

I have no familiarity with particular farm missions, but I suspect that you won't need to keep hurricane up all the time. Using roots you should be able to eliminate much of the incoming melee damage just by immobolizing enemies at range.

Pretty sure two factions fighting each other and xp stealing pets use the confuse tables. Non teamed players still split evenly to the best of my knowledge. Same information Local posted but in graphic form from the wiki:

You absolutely are better off with procs if you want FR to deal damage. See the link in my sig if you want all the numbers (Guide is for defenders but troller numbers are comparable). Gimping Freezing Rain with Positron Blasts is not worth the 6.25% defense bonus.

Again, Local is right (no one's surprised I hope). Remember that the procs fire every 10 secconds in Tornado, regardless of whether there are enemies close or not, so it's possible for the procs to fire and not hit anything. Although hopefully you will be locking down all of the enemies so that Tornado won't be chasing things when tehe procs fire and will instead be on top of enemies.

A proc in Tornado will have a chance to fire 4 times (might be 3, but we'll give it the benefit of the doubt and say 4). that's 4*74*.2 = 57.6 damage extra damage per cast. Tornado normally does 6.67*60 = 400 damage. Thus a damage proc in Tornado is only a 14% damage increaase. Thus if you would get more than a 14% damage bonus in Tornado you are better off slotting for damage. (Granted this assumes that tornado will be in contact with enemies throughout its duration, but if it's not in contact with enemies then you get 0 damage from the procs as well).

Not a Reactive Bug. Reactive works fine in Freezing Rain as well as Lightning Storm, both pseudopets. Haven't payed close enough attention to know if it's triggering in Tornado or not though.

Actually Freezing Rain is still very effective. You'll note that it is one of the few things (-Damage being another) that AVs don't resist. Technically, resistance debuffs are resisted by resistance, but in actuality this just means that a 30% resistance debuff always causes you to deal 30% more damage.

(If an enemy has 50% resistance, then 100 damage because 50 damage. A 30% resistance debuff is resisted 50% and thus becomes a 15% resistance debuff so the enemy now has 35% resistance, so 100 damage becomes 65 damage, but 65/50=1.3, so you are still dealing 30% more damage).

Granted this is still subjected to the purple patch and thus your debuff will get less effective as the AVs become higher levels than you, but FR is your most important power in AV fights. Especially because you can stack it and if you're lucky hit 90% -res. Read my guide to understand the poofing bug and why you need to be lucky, and note that controller numbers on FR are slightly lower.

The other thing to remember is that FR and SS together provide 105% -recharge, so even against an AV that's still 16% -recharge, which means it takes there powers 20% longer to recharge which means longer between uses of the hard hitting powers. Thus, I will usually run SS on AVs as well, especially since it keeps them from flying away.

Hurricane though I view as mostly worthless in AV fights (except for managing additional mobs, so it can be very handy say on the ITF), especially given it's massive endurance cost and that you will usually be safer at range.

Of course this is in addition to any purple patch resistance they will have due to be being a higher level, according to This.

Already covered territory, but since it doesn't look like someone posted it, here is the xp breakdown for confused enemies courtesy of the wiki:
link
apologies if I just missed it on my skim.

Apparently the way the badges are intended to work, they should not have been rewarded...link. Obviously they are though...and apparently todays patch hasn't changed that yet.

Seems like a thoroughly mediocre idea they have if the badges work as intended though.

Guess I'll have to escalate this up to support and see if they can help me, unless any of you have good ideas.

I think what your noticing is intentional on the part of the artists. Dragg is a pretty reserved, calm, and slightly lonely hero. So I think the look isn't so much clueless as it is somewhat removed.

If you don't need the endurance from the cardiac alpha, then I think Storm benefits much more form the spiritual alpha for the extra recharge. (more Freezing Rain, more Tornado, more LS) In standard play your debuffs are so massive that the musculature bonus to them won't make much difference. There may be an argument for going musculature in incarnate content where your debuffs are only 48% effective due to fighting +4s but I'm inclined to say no.

A few quick things on your build:
Freezing Rain is primarily useful for the -resistance debuff so I would sacrifice -defense debuffage for recharge. I would swap out the def/rech/end for the rech/end. It's not much of a difference (4% more recharge), but every little bit helps.

Also because you have Freezing Rain to debuff defense, I would sacrifice accuracy in Lightning Storm in order to up it's recharge.

Regardless it looks like you're in good shape.

I was not saying that said build couldn't farm, just that it was hardly optimal. I guess I get amused by folks who hit the soft cap and think that somehow makes their build untouchable. If it works for you...great!

I just worry that someone new to the forums will see that build and think that is what they are supposed to be playing and what a storm defender should aspire to. Thus, I think it's important to have dissonant voices.

I'm glad that the play style that goes with that build is comfortable for you, I just suspect that it won't be for many players.

Just to be clear, the images weren't outdated when posted. This thread was just started back in mid-february.

Although the current team window on test is an improvement over the images in this thread, in my opinion it is still a step backwards from our current team window.

I would continue to encourage folks to hop on test to check it out and provide feedback in the appropriate forums there.