Elemental_Knight

Great Costumes!

By the way, what boots are the first place design using? I have seen those boots, plus some similar bracers, in other pics, but can't find them in my list of options.

I take safeguarding as making a pre-emptive strike to protect the citizens of Paragon City from a potentially very bad situation. Here's what I can envision:

I noteworthy villian (maybe not a central villian) is amassing a large force of Arachnos troops to begin another attack on Paragon City. It is your job (and anyone you choose to bring with you) to cripple thier base of operations. However, your time to do so is limited. Security is tight and is expecting an attack from the heros. In order to give yourself more time to accomplish your central goal, you must create a few distractions.

These distractions could come from blowing up vehicles, supplies, buildings, and making troops disappear. But be careful, focusing your attention too long in one region of the base could get you discovered. You will need to be tactical and keep moving to keep the villians off your tail.

Other side missions could exist in these bases, some of which could be similar to those in Mayhem Missions. Free a captured healer, sneak into barracks and other buildings to steal supplies and plans, capture Arachnos personel to help open up other parts of the base.

Your final goal could vary, perhaps needing to destroy a central HQ or perhaps recovering a new type of weapon from the villians.

Anyways, that how I take safeguarding.

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*Sigh*

Once again the PvPers who refused to think through problems on the battlefield have gone and ruined things for everyone, including those who don't PvP at all or very often. The fact is, good PvPers know how to disable huricane fairly easily. All you have to remember are a few things:

1) Storm Defenders lack mez protection in their powerset. Unless they have another power that grants some or are teamed with people who can give them mez resistance, it can be very easy to hold, stun, sleep, whatever a storm defender.

2) Use travel powers to your advantage. If you have teleport, you can teleport right next to the defender and get off a mez attack before huricane takes effect. Or use superspeed's inertia to get in close.

3) Que your attack before engaging the storm defender. Remember, attacks will remained active ready to go off as soon as you get in range. So you can have a travel power ready, que the attack, get in close, and the mez attack or regular attack will go off on its own, even if you get repelled while it happens. The target only needs to be in range when the attack goes off.

So, there you have it, 3 simple things that can disable a stormie. Part of the challenge of PvP (and the fun if you ask me) is thinking through the challenges presented. It is a common theme that the best PvPers will do this, and that is why they are so strong. Not to say storm summoning's huricane did not need some nerf. The fact is forcing someone against a corner where they can do nothing (not even pop a break free) was a bit extreme and needed to be dealt with, but I think the developers are catering too much to people who just want a win button in PvP.

And why can't the effects of huricane be different in PvP and PvE. If you ask me, I haven't noticed storm being vastly overpowered in the PvE game. People must still think through their actions and I still risk death if I take on more than my powers can handle.

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All 3 of your suggestions can be avoided by the Stormy if he/she has Clear Mind or some other mez protection. Also even if you do have your melle attack qued you still be debuffed after hitting the Stormie--meaning that your Acc and Range will be floored.

Overall I do think Hurricane needed a nerf for PvP, but not the nerf that we just got. IMHO the worst thing about hurricane was not the repel but the debuff duration. It lasts WAY TOO LONG after you've got away from the radius. In addition it doesn't suppress your travel powers so a Stormy can SS/SJ through a group of toons, debuff them all, and get away with safety. The repel effects were the least of my concerns. :/

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The fact is, though, any build is more effective in a team with even semi-competent players. Any controller or corruptor can become a major threat if they are buffed with clear mind, as it is not as easy to removed from the fight via status effects. What I am trying to say, however, is that stormies are not an unstoppable solo force (as no AT, with the exception of Stalkers, to a degree, should be).

As for the accuracy problem? Yes, the accuracy debuff is fairly large with a well slotted huricane, but again, this can be negated in a decent group with powers like tactics, or the use of accuracy inspirations (maybe not just buy breakfrees, think more strategically).

Finally, a player with a high defence value can generally get through huricane pretty unscathed, from my experience. Think SR Stalker and assasine strike. Stormies are squishy afterall, so they don't require a lot to take out.

But the fact remains, forcing these nerfs into the PvE side of the game was not needed to this degree. Maybe a small nerf to the repel, but this is just ridiculous.

The thing that personally bugs me the most about this change is that, in a mission, I really can no longer protect a teamate if they got swarmed by more that they could handle. What I would do is if I saw a teamate was surrounded by a lot of NPCs and close to dieing, I would run in with huricane and push them away, giving me an opportunity to heal them with O2 boost. One of Storm's primary functions (at least to me) is to help protect the team by controlling the position of the enemies. If a teamate accidently agro'd another group, I would try to position my huricane in such a manner to effectively placed a wall between what my team was currently fighting, and what was trying to overwhelm them. By forcing this nerf upon the PvE aspect of the game, you severely reduce (if not obliterate) one of storm's primary functions in a team environment.

I think we seriously need to present these findings to a developer. From what I am reading, I am getting a feeling the developers only wanted these changes for PvP and this may be an error in the coding.

*Sigh*

Once again the PvPers who refused to think through problems on the battlefield have gone and ruined things for everyone, including those who don't PvP at all or very often. The fact is, good PvPers know how to disable huricane fairly easily. All you have to remember are a few things:

1) Storm Defenders lack mez protection in their powerset. Unless they have another power that grants some or are teamed with people who can give them mez resistance, it can be very easy to hold, stun, sleep, whatever a storm defender.

2) Use travel powers to your advantage. If you have teleport, you can teleport right next to the defender and get off a mez attack before huricane takes effect. Or use superspeed's inertia to get in close.

3) Que your attack before engaging the storm defender. Remember, attacks will remained active ready to go off as soon as you get in range. So you can have a travel power ready, que the attack, get in close, and the mez attack or regular attack will go off on its own, even if you get repelled while it happens. The target only needs to be in range when the attack goes off.

So, there you have it, 3 simple things that can disable a stormie. Part of the challenge of PvP (and the fun if you ask me) is thinking through the challenges presented. It is a common theme that the best PvPers will do this, and that is why they are so strong. Not to say storm summoning's huricane did not need some nerf. The fact is forcing someone against a corner where they can do nothing (not even pop a break free) was a bit extreme and needed to be dealt with, but I think the developers are catering too much to people who just want a win button in PvP.

And why can't the effects of huricane be different in PvP and PvE. If you ask me, I haven't noticed storm being vastly overpowered in the PvE game. People must still think through their actions and I still risk death if I take on more than my powers can handle.

*Bows to Gill and Cyber*

Those sketches are awesome guys, and you totally rock for doing this for Static's son!