El_Nino

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All of Storm's powers are close ranged?

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yes.

-Oxygen Boost: a heal. well ok, let's call this a ranged ability for the sake of argument
-Snowstorm: toggle debuff, can be easily broken by anyone with SJ
-Freezing Rain: location AoE. The mechanics of this is nothing like a targeted ranged attack. good luck hitting any leap froggers with this. Freezing rain often times is often to shield yourself with it to debuff those who are on a collision course with you
-Tornado: you even put tornado here? yeah, it doesn't go farther than like 20 feet of the master, lol. A summon power, hardly what I'd call long range
-Lightning Storm: summon once again. easily negated by simply moving away from it. it's not like i can shoot someone with lightning storm, so no this is not a 'ranged attack'. Like tornado this power is best used in close quarters.

all in all, storm is about being effective up close. the fact you fail to even know the basic mechanics of storm really tells me you don't have any experience with the set, yet you like to criticize it and say how it should be. Please do not talk about things you know nothing or very little about.

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I'll count Gale as close ranged just because I don't KNOW the range off the top of my head. So Gale, Hurricane, Steamy Mist, and Thunderclap are close ranged. That's hardly all of them, in fact it's not even most of them. What constitutes a long ranged power in your mind, such that Storm's attacks are all close ranged? Do you want sniper range on Freezing Rain or something? I'm not even attacking you, I'm just confused, because last I saw these things weren't even close to melee ranged powers.

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gale is actually the only targeted ranged power other than o2 boost in the set. very situational and very limited mainly because everyone takes acrobatics, making it completely useless in most cases. definition of 'ranged' in this game would be to target and click, and the power fires off. The categories would be officially classified as follows: ranged (gale, o2 boost), pbAoE (hurricane, thunder clap, steamy mist), toggle debuff (snow storm), summon (tornado, lightning storm), location AoE (freezing rain)

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Ask any stormer how long they would survive in close quarters against an /nrg or /elec blapper?

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Ask any Dominator the same thing. This is hardly an issue unique to Storm Summoners, surely a more global fix makes more sense.

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sure, just because one set is disadvantaged against an FoTM means you gotta [censored] on someone else? and no, this game no longer needs global fixes. it's time the devs started fine tuning the sets if they want balance.

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I mentioned every single archetype available to the villains, and yes they have powersets that can easily neutralize a stormer.

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If it's so easy, who cares how good or bad Hurricane is? It's casually neutralized, and thus doesn't even enter into play. How can you be SO upset about Hurricane being changed -- moreover, h ow can it be the CORNERSTONE of your survivability and defense -- if it's so easily and completely neutralizable?

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don't even give me that crap. you know as well as any other, every set for any AT has a signature type power. How would you like it if Integration only protected against mezzes 1/4 of the time, or instant healing's heal rate was reduced by 1/4? Wouldn't be much of a regen huh? Oh but the rest of your set still works! yeah, I'm sure you wouldn't see it that way The application of storm powers works in a way that they are most effective up close. Hurricane was their defense and gave them a prayer of staying alive while doing this. And about counters, there are a bunch. the fact you're not willing to go and find them or apply them is nobody's fault but your own.

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It's not really a safe zone, and perhaps that was a bad way to describe it.

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No, I'd say it was an excellent way to describe it. You spoke truthfully and directly from the vantage-point of someone who has not one, but two Storm Summoning characters in their signature. You called it a safe zone because you recognized from quite a bit of experience that's what it essentially amounted to for the most part; sure, a particularly competent melee player could wheedle out an occasional attack, but you're good enough to keep it together despite that, and overall the hurricane area was very, very safe from melee as a result.

Backpedalling on that terminology now because it doesn't suit your case, while understandable, isn't convincing. I won't press that issue further, because I don't want to come off as being hostile about it, but I think you put it quite correctly the first time, with your so put simple terms.

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Sure, if you think hurricane is some kind of god mode, i would encourage you to go ahead and make a stormer, and when you hit 50, go PvP on test arena night. I would put a thousand down that you'd get smoked like nobody's business. Using storm summoning is much more challenging when you are up against top tier players, and if you don't believe me, then go for it. I guarantee that the majority of experienced pvper's out there are not in disagreement with me. Trust me, if something is overpowered, I would be the first to tell you it is. I have a spines/regen, that's overpowered. I got an Ice/Cold. That build is pretty juiced too. The stormers, nope. I'd say viable, but to call them overpowered would be insane.

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I quote what I am responding to RyStorm, while refraining from quoting what I feel warrants no response. I do this in an effort to keep my posts shorter and more readable, while at the same time clearly highlighting what I am responding to. I'm sorry it bothers you; if my posting style irritates you, I'd rather abstain than piss you off. Thanks for the conversation.

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Well respond to the statement going in the same direction as I'm going, don't try to switch it around like I'm implying something else.

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The game is all about tactics and counters.

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And the tactics and counters required for the old Hurricane were abnormally specific when compared to the tactics and counters required for almost everything else. If you want the game to require more precise tactics and more specific counters, I'm all for it, so long as it's not JUST Hurricane. But you seemed to be happy with it being JUST Hurricane in that regard, and I don't agree with that.

I'm okay with just disagreeing on that matter. I'm not happy with MOST Archetypes being very, very general in what it takes to counter them, and one or two being substantially more specific. You seem to like it. That's fine.

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ok so counter to melee and blappers could easily be other things. but let's see how storm is designed. all of it's powers are close range, and hurricane is a tool to help them survive that close combat. Ask any stormer how long they would survive in close quarters against an /nrg or /elec blapper? My guess would be like 2 seconds tops. Sure there are other counters to x, y, and z, so why am i talking about 'just hurricane'? Because this thread is about hurricane?

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What sort of nonsense. Nonsense such as viable counters? Nonsense such as maybe bringing some teammates to help stop this stormer that is most likely teamed?

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Nonsense such as needing pretty specific team mates. Against almost any other powerset, sure I'd need team mates at times, but almost any SORT of team mate would do. That's much, much less true of Hurricane, and that's what I felt was nonsense.

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I mentioned every single archetype available to the villains, and yes they have powersets that can easily neutralize a stormer. I don't see anything 'specific' in saying that counters are available across the entire spectrum of villain archetypes.

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The repel and melee safe zone...

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Mobile safe zones you can fire from shouldn't exist. I don't agree with the existence of "safe zones" The sheer fact you'd CALL it that just reinforces my point. You're free to disagree, but I've got nothing further to say on the existence of mobile safe zones created by powers. I don't feel speaking about them strengthens your case.

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It's not really a safe zone, and perhaps that was a bad way to describe it. I just try to explain things in simple terms that everyone can understand. So call hurricane a shield against melee. It's not a safe zone by any means, considering that there are 3 tanker/brute defensive sets that can bypass the repel. 2 for scrappers, 2 for stalkers. Any build with a kinetics ally can get through hurricane. vengeance buffs... all of a sudden this safe zone can easily be breached by joe blow and they'll be right in your face wailing on you. Safe zone? hardly. I'm glad you have nothing else to say. Your exaggerations on storm summoning is inaccurate at best. I also like how you quote fragments of my posts and take them in a whole different direction. if you're gonna quote what i say, take the whole statement

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Why do people keep acting like the Stormers are NPCs with no awareness or ability to use tactics of their own? They're not helpless, they're presumably intelligent players reacting to what's around them.

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^ I don't know, I'm not acting like this either.

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I don't feel ANY build should be able to shut down any other reasonable PvP build - ever. You feel otherwise, that's your choice. It's hardly like I'm uniquely and totally against Hurricane here; I'm just as against the ridiculous amounts of damage put out in PvP, capable of dropping people in split seconds, because it literally does shut down other types of builds to a large extent. I literally want PvP damage scaled down at least moderately specifically to make it so no one DOES die in 2 seconds to a Stalker, Blaster, or Scrapper. But you assume because I play a Stalker I'm only FOR changes that help Stalkers and AGAINST changes that don't.

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The game is all about tactics and counters. If there was nothing that could shut down, or let's say, counter another build, then what would be the purpose of going anything but damage? The only thing uncounterable would be dying, since when you die, you can't counter. Repel powers are the counter to some of the most threatening stuff in the game, namely blappers and stalkers. Some stalker builds even have repel resistance (EA, Regen-MoG) that can counter this. At the same time, storm's lack of a self heal, mez protection, or high defense powers (like PFF) make them most vulnerable to range attacks and mezzes. Basically the repel for storm prevents deaths, but if that is something that makes it nerfable, then maybe the first on the nerf list should be empathy and thermal since they do a way better job at it

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there is a good selection of corrupters, dominators, masterminds, hell, even stalker and brute builds that can give a stormer a bad day. - Yes, that's what I did. Now I don't have to resort to that sort of nonsense, and there's one less inequity. Hopefully more inequities will be resolved.

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What sort of nonsense. Nonsense such as viable counters? Nonsense such as maybe bringing some teammates to help stop this stormer that is most likely teamed? Yeah, God forbid we ever have to resort to such nonsense as finding counters and some decent teammates.

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pretty soon with all these nerfs to make debuffs/repels ineffective, all we are going to be seeing soon is nothing but buff and damage builds.

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See, I'm not FOR the debuff nerfs. You attack me, but I don't think the debuff weakening IS a good thing. My issue was with Hurricane's incredible repel, and that was it. If you're just speaking in general, fine, but if you're speaking to me specifically understand that if anything I think debuffs in general should be a bit stronger. Debuffs like Snowstorm and Freezing Rain, for example. Something needed to be done about Hurricane's repel, though, and it was.

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The repel and melee safe zone especially from blappers is a huge part of storm survivability. Without a kinetics defender or controller on say, an ice/nrg blaster's team, they won't be able to just rush in and aim+bu/bonesmasher/BiB/TF and KO you in basically 3 seconds. Now they sorta can, the repel was one of the bigger things that hurricane had, it's main defense against high dmg blappers. I can understand your personal frustration with repel, however this type of drastic changes to a power opens the door for already borderline overpowered builds just to become more of just that (ice/nrg blaster). I think their offensive power should remain the same and dmg shouldnt be nerfed further. ED was bad enough already. The acc debuff on it getting nerfed was a joke. Ask how many scrappers/tanks with focused accuracy were missing a stormer that caned them. Snowstorm and freezing rain are pretty good debuffs but wont save you from the ice/nrg hopping in and 3 shotting you before you even get a chance to apply 1 debuff.

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It's been going in that direction for quite some time, and all the changes the devs are making, it's only encouraging that even further.

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Hurricane's repel was an issue entirely on it's own. If you've got a problem with the general way the game is developing, there's no reason to take a hostile tone with me about it. My support for one ch ange doesn't entail my support for the other changes you take issue with; I'm with you on those.

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Hurricane's repel and getting worked by Ice/nrg blaster and their buff buddes actually go hand in hand, and is not a seperate issue. The main reason why my SG brought stormers and FFers into battle was mainly as an anti blapper. Until you dropped this guy's toggle, we'd focus on the FotM blaster builds and make things harder on them. But hell, if they brought a pet kinetics with them we were pretty screwed and spent the entire match running for our lives. I know what you're trying to say, but what I'm saying is that changing a power in such a way closes the door for one certain build to counter some of the powerful builds in the game, and one less viable tactic to fight against the horde of FoTM blasters and their buffers. Instead of being a build that was a viable counter, you get add to the long list of being their b*tches

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Why do people keep acting like the Stormers are NPCs with no awareness or ability to use tactics of their own? They're not helpless, they're presumably intelligent players reacting to what's around them.

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Why do people keep acting like they have to stay huddled and all get hit by hurricane at the same time? Why do people feel that just because they rolled an EM stalker, that they should have the right to kill anything with their easy button? So 1 build managed to shut yours down, bring a friend who's build shuts theirs down. there is a good selection of corrupters, dominators, masterminds, hell, even stalker and brute builds that can give a stormer a bad day.

pretty soon with all these nerfs to make debuffs/repels ineffective, all we are going to be seeing soon is nothing but buff and damage builds. why make anything else other than emp and ice/nrg blasters. It's been going in that direction for quite some time, and all the changes the devs are making, it's only encouraging that even further.

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No, not just one SG but rather a group of about 30-40 heroes tackling our teams of two (not entirely full) and a few other random villains not partied with us.

We had taken on team of heroes with larger numbers than ours before, and had stood our ground on equal footing, won, or yes, lost, but never like we lost when hurricane began to be abused.

Sometimes it simply seemed we were largely outnumbered because a stormer would swoop in and all of us would have no idea why nobody was dieing. In these situations the truth was, people were not dieing because we couldn't land a hit, not because they had endless numbers.

The -range having a lingering affect was largely abused, without the lingering affect we wouldn't have had these problems.

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if you guys stood all close enough together for a single hurricaner to nail you all in 1 swoop, you deserved to get that foot in your [censored].

let me get this straight, you guys beat the heroes despite being outnumbered and everything is cool, then when finally you start losing, you blame it on abusing powers? brilliant. I guess the EA stalkers that already stun me through hurricane or the focused spines crits that drop me before i can react are abuse too? what about that abuse in the game called blasters and empaths teaming up. give me a freakin break

if you are too retarded to know how to counter multiple stormers, then I'm sorry but you either need to practice or quit the game. I've faced teams with multiple stormers (we're talking 2-4)+ empath both as heroes and villains and we had no problem knocking the snot out of them. All it took was a little bit of tactics and not playing into their strength. like, not being retarded and huddling up with your teammates, that's just asking for it.

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remember guys...

storms have no self heal
storms have no mez protection
storms have no ranged defense
storms NOW HAVE extremely limited melee defense

they do not need this nerf.

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oh cry me a river. tell that to my bubbler. oh btw at least your storm has offensive capabilities. be thankful.

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bubblers don't have anything like ranged toggle droppers and perma DF to take opponents out of the fight indefinitely? Not to mention they get some decent mez protection. don't even start with me on bubblers not having anything

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or other powers which are worse than getting pinned to a wall, how about powers like sonic cage and detention field that prevent a player from playing indefinitely as long as the cager wants to follow them around


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If Hurricane fell victim to the nerf bat, what makes you think SC and DF are safe? Or even FB and TK?

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because you dont have 50 or so noobs saying z0mg nerf FB! I just bought this game yesterday and know nothing about this powerset but it beat me so nerf it!!!!

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/em wonders when the devs are gonna realize that Force Bubble has the same "problem" that convinced em to zap Hurricane.

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and TK, talking about being pinned against a wall for 2 hours if the guy wants to do it to you

or other powers which are worse than getting pinned to a wall, how about powers like sonic cage and detention field that prevent a player from playing indefinitely as long as the cager wants to follow them around

this is where I lost faith in the devs. They seem to be oblivious to the facts that there are just as broken or more broken than certain powers, but let those others go unscathed until a wave of noobs complains about it. PvP will never be balanced in this game the way the devs are going with it.

it's only a matter of time before devs nerf enough viable but not overpowered builds that all you'll be seeing is ice/nrg blasters and their empath pets. oh wait, it's like that already. my bad.

i got 1 shotted by an AR/dev blaster and he said my dils was small son

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Scrappers out damage blasters in melee. Blasters AT mod is 1, while scrappers is 1.125. Scrappers also get unresistable criticals of 2x damage 5% of the time, which can be compared to Blasters 33% unresistable damage.

Energy Melee's Stuns coupled with toggle dropping pretty much make the damage a secondary effect. While the blasters (who have little or no mez protections) are used to functioning with break frees active, most scrappers are not, as they rely on their inherent protection powers to keep them safe.

In other words, despite your toggle powers protections, pretend you don't have them and prepare based on that -- because those protections will be knocked down at some point.

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proof that the devs know jack about pvp balance in their own game.

devices can own scrappers, especially ice/dev. take away jump/fly and the ice blasts will slow them. you'll always be having a mobility advantage over them and this is huge as we all know. spines may have a chance but i can see a good ice/dev smashing the average spiner

sounds interesting. web grenades for ice/cold = ouch

this really doesn't change anything, most burst dmg deaths are caused by 2-3 shotting not 1 shotting

in any case the change to the end on mobs might be a good one

i honestly hope they dont include shadow maul in the set. being planted for 4 seconds as a stalker = a free ticket to the hospital

i hope for DM there's buildup instead of soul drain. would be kinda stupid if the powerup move for DM knocks them out of hide also hehe

well I agree for the most part except drones should be having tp foe aura protection. i strongly would be against that, because those people who use tp foe into the drones wouldnt have much of a counter. it's always fun to find those lamers who tp people into drones, to tp them into a 8on1 beatdown

mitochondria antibodies

why not give practiced brawler a dull pain effect or maybe a defense buff added to it. I always thought that a skill called practiced brawler would make someone tougher, other than just having resistance to mezzes and kinda goes with the theme =]

Storm Angel
Resolute SG Uniform
The "I'm so wasted!" pic

as a storm defender i dont have much problems finding a team. heck, there's level 50 teams or high 40's always sending me tells and asking me if i want to help them with archvillians. I believe defenders are still wanted in teams (my PoV on the freedom server).

my gripe is being perma suppressed when you use anchor debuffs. that needs to be fixed so you're suppressed initially but not permanently. there's nothing you can do about someone outrunning your leash when you cant even keep up with them

Black Hand Inc vs Vyvyanne's Testers. I tried to kill Vyv but it kept giving me the invalid target error, so i just unleashed the storm on her team it was fun!

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y14...dvsTesters.jpg

thanks for the great post. i will save this to my favorites

best thread ever, thank you