Supperb. 
As ordered by cforce:
cforce:
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Folks, I've put together my last guide; feel free to comment on it, Mind/Storms especially.
cforce's Mind/Storm Guide
I hope this is of use to other Mind/Storms which come after me. Also, I just wanted to take a moment to say that the folks on this forum represent perhaps the best group of posters I've encountered. Everyone here is reasonable, well-spoken, and helpful. In an internet full of l337 h4XX0rz and flame wars, y'all have have risen above. My hats off to all of you, and my thanks.
Toodles,
cforce
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Rasalgethi:
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Thank you for the guide(s), I was hoping for a long time to see a new mind/storm guide since MrHood's is issues ago. Since you're asking for comments I'm going to go a-commenting, a lot is just my 2 cents.
"What differentiates Mind/Storm from other Mind builds? In a word, positioning. Mind/storm offers a level of mob positioning tools that are probably only surpassed by a herding tank."
THANK YOU! I'm glad someone feels the same way. In the usual way thought of as "control", as in tightly packed, drooling helpless mobs, I don't really feel we "control" better than any ice or earth controller worth their salt.
But we are not "location limited" nor entangled up in pets. Mind/storms take their control with them and they move their mobs to where they want the control to be. We mez and move them with both primary and secondary and dictate the terms of battle. The harder we toss our powers the better we control.
I agree on your assessment of O2 boost and steamy mist. If heals and resists are really needed it is better to recruit someone who can provide such things better.
Snow storm:
Unlike your build, I have snow storm early for when my controls are not developed. I find snow storm + freezing rain as a very nice pseudo-hold. I always have this power running in group battles because of it's -recharge.
Thunderclap:
I disagree with your assessment. Since I5 and ED, I've picked this power up and 5slot it. For small groups of mostly minions, I use it as a weak AoE hold. Mass hypnosis, jump in, thunderclap then toss freezing rain to stop them from drunk-waltzing away. This combo is up every spawn and can be used all the time. (This isn't my tactic, someone else posted it and after trying it I found it great.)
Tornado:
Also disagree here. I use it quite a bit, and almost always when solo. It tangles up bosses that you can't deal with immediately and also disorients mobs. It's like a unruly rottweiler that hangs around you and goes after enemies. With the ragdoll effect, it becomes even better. Mobs ragdolled down stay on the ground twitching while Tornado pounds on them. When they get up they're tossed again. I don't even have damage slotted in my mind powers except levitate. When I solo, I just hurricane mobs into a pile and then tornado/lightningstorm them to death instead of levitating one by one.
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Argentae:
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Haven't had a chance to really read though it yet, but I'd like to thank you for the effort. Mind/Storm is one of the builds on my *need to try* list.
Quick note on the duration/recharge times, they were current as of I5, but while testing Mind Dominators I've found (so far, I don't know what's resistent yet and only have a handful of powers available to test with) that Dom durations are 65% on the times I have for Mind Controllers( I tested Confuse and Mez vs a solo Aracnos minion). Someone posted that they did some testing with a lvl 2 Mind Controller vs lvl 2 Hellions Minion and got the same times (22 Sec Duration for Confuse and 34 Sec Duration for Mezmerize). I haven't had a chance to retest yet, but it's possible that there may be a bug with the Dominator times affecting Controllers or even that we've been stealth nerfed with a 6X6. ::shrug:: Given my tiny data sample, it's certainly possible that I just picked a bad subject to test sleep and Confuse against, but in any case the statement that a lvl 2 Mind controller is only getting 14 sec from Dom and 34 from Mez definitely has me concerned... Just though you should know that there's some I6 murkiness before you published times...
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Argentae:
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FYI: I retested Mesmerize and Confuse w/ a lvl 39 Mind Controller vs a lvl 39 Crey Geneticist and got the same exact times: 52 Sec for Mesmerize and 34 Sec for Confuse.
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Sakura_Kitsuki:
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Very solid guide; I do a lot the same way with my own Mind/Storm. He's on hold now thanks to CoV, but the combination is huge fun and I don't doubt I'll be back to him soon.
Pre-ED, I'd 6-slotted Mez/Dominate/Levitate for 1 accuracy/5 damage. I now do 1 acc/3 dam/1 endred/1 recred on Mez and Levitate -- but I don't have Hasten. Not yet, anyway. Dominate I'm still playing with; I'm thinking 1 acc/2 dam/2 hold/1 recred withh turn out well. (I find I don't need the duration very much at all, while the small damage boost helps. This may change in a few more levels; he still hasn't hit 30 and the slowdown.)
Also, I'd wait a little longer on Total Domination. Without SOs, it's too inaccurate and too slow to recharge. I'd get to Stamina more quickly and then take TD at 22, I think. Or even 24 (Hurricane is lovely).
Likely just playstyle preferences, though, and otherwise, it looks spot-on to me. Nice work.
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3_Kings:
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Nice guide. My first character is a mind/storm, so i made plenty of mistakes. I never got snow storm. With all the control, figured I didn't need it. With I6, i got rid of hasten. Long reloads, but always have at least one control up at all time, especially with TK/hurricane combo. Stamina is always a must.
How is Fireball? I have psych power pool. Is the damage really that good?
3 Kings
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Bakta_hero:
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Solid guide, as usual.
I have to disagree on some Storm uses.
First of, O2. It's quite a handy power to grab post 40. Breakfree are only so many, so if you are in a group and get your def stunned for a very long time by e.g a malta, it may go downward after that. O2's uses are first to get rid of effects, second heal a little bit on the side.
Hurricane, now this one will create a storm, but Im of the mind to get it removed as one respec in the later stages. While it's very handy in the mid 20/30, later on you rely more on holding/sleeping whatever moves and letting others clean up if you are in a group.
Solo, even with setting at inv, you'll face 3 mobs together top. Using hurricane on them is not very useful.
There is one trick one can use with levitate or fly at high levels outside. Mark your group and TD them. Go right into the middle, use fly to go up a little bit (rough estimate is 1.5 normal size). Unleash lighting storm. The knockback effect will now turn into a knock down. If you feel nasty just use mass sleep, snow storm and ice storm right after you unlesahed lighting, they must run away but are 1, too slow, 2 knocked down by ice patch, 3 knocked down by lighting.
As a final, I found more use in the psych epic line instead of the fire one, it's a matter of taste I concede.
Cheers,
B
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cforce:
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Good commentary all -- lemme suggest you post some of the follow-up commentary in the guide thread itself, rather than here. Always good to have diverse opinions represented in the part of the forums that won't be purged. I'm not going to be updating the guide anymore myself, as I'm riding off into the sunset. Just wanted to help out by passing along whatever I could before I left.
Enjoy, and go kick some Arachnos heiney for me.
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"Honesty is for the most part less profitable than dishonesty." -- Plato
Playing Gods (51106) - Heroic Lvl 5-20
What Rough Beast (255143) - Villainous Lvl 40-50
Just a followup to the durations times above:
I've since found that a lot of the duration discrepancies noted by other are due to the scaling of hold times. Mesmerize for example lasts about 38 seconds when cast on an even con minion with no duration enhancements when cast by a lvl 1 Mind Controller. A lvl 39 Mind Controller casting the same unenhanced Mesmerize on an even con minion will see a duration of 52 seconds. These numbers are clear and repeatable. Further testing between a lvl 21 Mind Controller and lvl 39 Mind Controller yielded a pretty even delta of 1.13 for duration for Mesmerize, Confuse and Dominate. In other words, all the single target holds lasted almost exactly 1.13 times as long for the lvl 39 Mind Controller as they did for the lvl 21 Mind Controller. Interesting no? Mass Hyp also scales though I haven't determined the ratio for that one yet. A lot more testing needs to be done to nail down the actual curve (if there is one) but it's worth knowing that such scaling is in fact happening.
Mind/Storm is moving up on my list too... Maybe I'll go make one, hmmm...
Thanks for the wonderful guide cforce. Based on your recommendations I built a Mind/Storm and took her to 50. It's truely one of the most fun characters I've played.
That combo is just seriously sick, and is a perversion of gameplay mechanics. - Excelsio
The Infernal Challenge
Building a WarTroller
Troller Damage
if you liked this guide magic, i have a more up to date and somewhat longer one specifically on mind/storm.
Katerinae's Guide to Mind/Storm Control
Virtue Heroes of note:
Katerinae, Luci Ferre, Shinigami's Kiss, Dark Invokation, Cerulean Twilight, Side effect, Cheshire Noir
Virtue Villains of note:
- Black Dragon, Raven Sterling, Domina Procella, Inertia K., Vivian Revenio, Charlotte Arachne, Doll Parts, Fierce Orchid, Theta Charge
I. Goals
But, seriously -- understanding any Mind/* build starts with understanding how confusion works.
There are several other very good Mind/* guides, and I have no desire to re-invent the wheel. However, the existing Mind/Storm guide (Mrhood's) is fairly out of date. So, I figured I'd put a more recent reference in here to get people pointed in the right direction. For the most part, there's good, existing material....
II. Prerequisites
I consider all of the below necessary and sufficient reading for folks wanting to learn about the Mind primary. (There's other material to be sure, but the following covers all the bases.)
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WhisperWitch's Tactics for Mind/Force Fields (magicj)
Read all the Mind-only sections of this guide. An excellent tactics guide to Mind powers.
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Mind Control/Empathy Guide (Support) V2.0 (Enantiodromos)
Read the Mind-specific sections of this guide. Good overview of all Mind powers.
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Hedon's Guide to Mind Control/Telekinesis (Hedon)
While I disagree with some of Hedon's finer points, his section on Telekinesis should be read and understood by all aspiring Mind/*'s.
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cforce's Guide to Confusion V1.0(Cforce)
Well, duh. Of course I think the stuff I wrote before is important!
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Finally, a quick supplemental reference of I6 recharges and durations for the most commonly asked about powers, thanks to Argentae:
Mass Hyp: 45 Sec Recharge 21 Duration
Total Dom: 240 Sec Recharge 14 Sec Duration
Terrify: 40 Sec Recharge 27 Sec Fear Duration
TK: 60 Sec Recharge As itÂ’s a Toggle, it lasts until you turn it off/ run out of End etc
Mass Confusion: 240 Sec Recharge Sec 35 Sec Duration
Confuse: 8 Sec Recharge 34 Sec Duration
Mez: 6 Sec Recharge 52 Sec Duration
Lev: 6 Sec Recharge Knockup lasts long enough to use Dom-Lev-Dom to hold a Boss
Dom: 8 Sec Recharge 21.5 Sec Duration
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The above guides cover what you need to know about the Mind Primary. I'm not going to rehash any of the specifics that have already been covered well by other people. Instead, what I'll go into is the details of the Storm secondary, and how they interact with Mind.
III. Mind/Storm
What differentiates Mind/Storm from other Mind builds? In a word, positioning. Mind/storm offers a level of mob positioning tools that are probably only surpassed by a herding tank. Telekinesis, in addition to being a strong AoE hold, adds to storms formidable array of mob positioning effects. Confuse, always fun, doubles as a great way to deal with 'stragglers' who are out of position, and convince them to rejoin the 'crowd'.
Gale: in most builds, gale is little more than an 'oh well, you have to take it' power. In Mind/Storm, it occasionally has the role of a more aggresive positioning power, typically to quickly move mobs into a corner where they can be abused with telekinesis or hurricane. While hardly a great power, it's usable in a position-oriented Mind/storm build. One accuracy enhancement is enough for this power.
O2 Boost: decent targeted heal, but I never took it. There are so many more 'must have' powers, and as a */Storm, the team should never be casting you in the role of 'healer'.
Snow Storm: post-I5, I'm back in favor of taking this one again. Your AoE controls will often keep mobs mobile, and a sprinkle of slow helps you really keep control of the situation. This is 'helpful enough' with one endurance reduction, but you can also throw a pair of slows in it to push it more as a soft control rather than merely a positioning helper.
Steamy Mist: a very good power, but strictly optional if you're running out of room. Consider stacking it with SS for full invisibility. This greatly increases your ability to pick out the perfect 'starting spot' for each battle. Perfectly good with just the initial slot, but can take up to an end reducer and 3 resistance enhancements, if you've got slots to spare.
Freezing Rain: you must take Freezing Rain. Strongly consider throwing a couple of recharge in it. No other controller debuff accelerates mob defeat quite like it. Debuffs defense and resistance to maximize the damage you're dealing, while not wasting any endurance on superfluous accuracy and damage debuffs, which you don't need on a held mob.
Have snow storm handy when you use FR or mobs not under hard control - slept, confused, or feared. I'd suggest snow storm being in place before FR, in these cases.
Freezing rain is fine with one end reducer, but you can throw up to 3 recharges in it as well to get closer to a 'perma' effect. If you've got slots to spare, you can throw defense debuffs in here as well, but that's highly optional.
Hurricane: great out of the box with 1 end reduction as a positioning tool. Sprinkle with acc debuff enhancements for a soft control/emergency 'get everyone away from me' power. Not quite a 'must have', but I strongly recommend you pick it up.
Thunder Clap: skip it! You have plenty of better AoE control in your primary.
Tornado: somewhere in your mind storm career, you may wonder 'hey, I wonder if I can TK a bunch of mobs into a corner, and then unleash a tornado on them to chew them up while I hold them in place?' I'll save you some time: no. While TK does cancel out a lot of the knockback, it doesn't prevent the knockup, which turns out to be a problem. Between stacking on top of each other and getting 'caught' on tiny nubbins in the scenery and suspended 20 feet in the air where tornado can't reach, this just doesn't turn out to be an effective tactic.
This power is very fun, but ultimately just not that effective. I recommend skipping it - I didn't take it until 49, and then just for fun factor.
Lightning Storm: not an offensive juggernaught, but decent damage, especially on pre-clustered mobs. Use this power, freezing rain, and terrify to capitalize on nice tight clumps of mobs for mazimum beatdown. One endurance reduction (possibly two) and 3 damage work out nicely. Consider adding an accuracy, but it's not absolutely necessary with freezing rain debuffing defense.
Brief pool note: Stamina is highly recommended with Mind/Storm, since Storm tends to be end-heavy and has no way to recover it. Hasten is also recommended, but not 100% necessary; you can, to some degree, make up for slower AoE recharge by virtue of simply having a larger stable of AoE's from which to choose.
IV. Supplemental tactics with Mind/Storm
You already read the tactics guide above for the mind-only tactics, right? Great. Now we'll move to specifc Mind/Storm tactics.
1. Snow Storm Whack-a-Mole
Requires: snow storm, mass hypnosis, dominate/mesmerize
In your teens, you're going to end up possibly relying on the somewhat fragile mass hypnosis while teaming. To offset its fragility, open with mass hypnosis and follow up with snow storm. Then as your sleeps are broken, you have more time to hit guys with individual holds and sleeps...they won't get very far because of snow storm.
2. Stick the landing, Beginner
Requires: telekinesis, gale
TK is tricky, and you may not succeed in scooping up 5 people on your first pass. Redirect stragglers, as necessary, into the TK corner with gale.
3. Stick the landing, intermediate
Requires: telekinesis, hurricane
Same basic idea as the previous tactic, but use hurricane in a sweeping motion to get stragglers into the corner.
4. Stick the landing, expert: Super-Sticky Corner of Doom
Requires: telekinesis, snow storm, hurricane, freezing rain, lightning cloud
Follow up your TK with a snow storm on the same anchor. This helps a *little* bit with the sweeping, but also creates a snow globe in the corner which affects more than just the 5 TK'ed mobs. Use hurricane (and/or gale) to get stragglers in your sticky corner. Once you've got a happy party of angry in the corner, keep folks herded there with hurricane, which should be easy due to the snow storm. Meanwhile, drop a lightning cloud and freezing rain. Enjoy the fireworks.
5. Free Range Chicken Herding
Requires: terrify, snow storm, freezing rain, hurricane
Start with terrify and snow storm. Do a 'fly-by' with hurricane, just touching mobs to debuff their accuracy. Now, freezing rain. Mobs will occasionally take a debufed pot shot, but mostly will try to escape the rain. With hurricane and snow storm, you should easily be able to keep them herded in under the rain. But, if you can't, don't worry! Anyone who gets out will cower harmlessly until you get around to their side to push them back in. This tactic works well in wide open spaces.
6. Hurricane at the OK Corral
Requires: Hurricane, Snow Storm, TD/TK/MC/Terrify
A fun trick when pulling... Hide just around an 'ambush' corner out of sight, but with your hurricane extending around the corner. Mobs will tend to cluster neatly as they each run through the hurricane and get knocked back. (Stick a snow storm on the first one for neater clumping.) Once everyone's arrived, pop out with your AoE, and then continue to use hurricane to position the held/slept/feared/confused mobs to a likely corral.
V. My Build
I build for a roughly even mix of soloing and teaming -- as such, my build includes some items slotted for damage early. Many of the 'support' functions don't get slotted out until much later in the build. This build is a post-ED version; I slimmed down to no more than 3 of any particular type of enhancement in any power to cope with ED.
Exported from version 1.5A of CoH Planner
http://joechott.com/coh
Archetype: Controller
Primary Powers - Ranged : Mind Control
Secondary Powers - Support : Storm Summoning
01 : Gale acc(01)
01 : Levitate acc(01) dam(9) dam(11) dam(11)
02 : Dominate acc(02) acc(3) hlddur(3) hlddur(5) hlddur(5) recred(9)
04 : Mesmerize acc(04) dam(13) dam(13) dam(15)
06 : Hasten recred(06) recred(7) recred(7)
08 : Confuse acc(08) cnfdur(29) cnfdur(37) cnfdur(40)
10 : Mass Hypnosis acc(10) slpdur(15) recred(46)
12 : Swift runspd(12)
14 : Super Speed endred(14)
16 : Freezing Rain endred(16) recred(17) recred(17) recred(40)
18 : Total Domination acc(18) acc(19) hlddur(19) hlddur(21) hlddur(21) recred(31)
20 : Hurdle jmp(20)
22 : Stamina endrec(22) endrec(23) endrec(23)
24 : Telekinesis recred(24) recred(25) recred(25)
26 : Terrify acc(26) dam(27) dam(27) dam(29) endred(31) recred(31)
28 : Hurricane endred(28) thtdbf(36) thtdbf(36) thtdbf(37)
30 : Snow Storm endred(30) slw(34) slw(36) slw(37)
32 : Mass Confusion acc(32) acc(33) recred(33) recred(33) recred(34) cnfdur(34)
35 : Steamy Mist endred(35) damres(46) damres(46) damres(48)
38 : Lightning Storm endred(38) acc(39) dam(39) dam(39) dam(40) recred(43)
41 : Fire Ball acc(41) dam(42) dam(42) dam(42) recred(43) recred(43)
44 : Fire Shield endred(44) damres(45) damres(45) damres(45)
47 : Consume recred(47) recred(48) recred(48)
49 : Tornado recred(49) recred(50) recred(50) dam(50)
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01 : Brawl Empty(01)
01 : Sprint Empty(01)
02 : Rest Empty(02)
VI. Go out there 'n' have some fun!
Mind/Storm was a very fun combo for me to play. I got a lot of enjoyment out of it both soloing and teaming, and found it to be fairly strong throughout the game. Go out and enjoy your new Mind/Storm!