I really wish they would delete/replace some of the guides, their so old and misleading and screw people up.
Especially that Ultimate Mastermind Guide, says Trick Arrow is horrible.
[ QUOTE ]
If anyone's got thoughts on a Thugs/Storm, I'd love to hear them!
Thanks.
Later on,
Gatecrasher
[/ QUOTE ]
Thoughts on Thugs/Storm?
It's Hell.
Hell on a Harley with the wind whipping through your hair and the thunder rumbling off in the distance as you see lightning bolt after lightning bolt strike down from the heavens....
or something like that 
Mine is almost 41. I have Call Thugs,Call Enforcers,Call Bruiser, both upgrades, Dual Wield from Thugs.
I have everything from Storm with the exception of SnowStorm currently.
Planning on going with Mako just for the AoE Immobilize and the shield. Also want to pick up Snow Storm(just to slot the chance for damage proc), Maneuvers and Tactics (already have Assault).I'll prolly have to drop Dual Wield, but o well.
Anyway...Thugs/Storm is a beast.If there's a group, it has tons of AoE.If it's only one target, consider it dead. It's especially effective against AVs...Freezing Rain,Lightning Storm,Tornado,Gang War. Insane damage IMHO.The only time I use Tornado is against AVs as they are not knocked around by it...or when the crap hits the fan and I need a distraction to save some time.
The Arsonist,as much as I love him and his ability to SCOURGE....needs to lay off the drugs. Sometimes he'll charge in thinking he's a brute or tank instead of staying back and launching those awesome fire bombs/molotov cocktails.I took O2 boost to help with the pets' survivability.The Arsonist is usually the first one to die...so be prepared for that. With O2 Boost, it helps.
It's been a fun journey and I'm looking forward to the next 9.2 levels...lol.
A bunch of 50s and too many alts...
Neo's Guide To Thugs/Storm (need to update it)
www.facebook.com/bbirgephotos
Questions about Fire/Rad? Just ask!
With the hope that I haven't overlooked anything in the guides already posted, I'm wondering if anyone knows how to macro pet commands and ALSO have the pets say something to affirm the command. I've been able to macro the commands but they still say their generic lines that they were already programmed to say. Is there any way to alter what they say in a key bind or macro? Or am I doomed to seeing the same generic combat jargon for all eternity?!
I've done:
/macro <button name> "petcompow <petname> <follow defensive>$$..."
but after the $$ I can't figure out what can come next to override what they're already programmed to say in BG mode. Thanks in advance!
My Virtue Projects
AE: 38959 - Invasion of the Dark Realm
You can't override the bodyguard talky that they come with, but you can turn it off in your options and give them a simple petsay to replace it. Be prepared for people to ask you to shut your pets up though
Any guides for Necro/Storm? 
Seven years of heroism. Seven years of friendships. Seven years of saving the world. Seven years of virtuous selflessness.
You will return, for you are the mighty City of Paragon, the City of Heroes.
Is there going to be a guide for necro/pain
Someone Should make a Necro/Pain Guide. 
Broken Guide:
General Guides:
Bodyguard Mode for N00bs, Haidou (UK)
Sadness. 
[ QUOTE ]
Broken Guide:
General Guides:
Bodyguard Mode for N00bs, Haidou (UK)
Sadness.
[/ QUOTE ]
I just tried those, and I was unable to access all the UK ones .
My Deviant Art page link-link
CoH/V Fan Videos
Updated our SG's mastermind guide:
http://celtechinc.21.forumer.com/vie....php?p=111#111
It now has the new power set and some addition information/corrections
I will add more to the secondary powerset briefings soon. probably tomorrow actually.
Celtech Main Site
My DA Profile
[ QUOTE ]
If anyone's got thoughts on a Thugs/Storm, I'd love to hear them!
Thanks.
Later on,
Gatecrasher
[/ QUOTE ]
Thugs/Storm is an awesome combination. I have a lvl 30 thugs/storm right now, and I am so anxious for 32 and 38 in particular. Storm is a POWERFUL debuff set, hitting enemies with aoe -def, -res, -rech, -tohit, -movement, and KB/KU and it also happens to include a single target heal, and fairly heavy damage output.
gale is useless, just put it somewhere you won't bump it accidentally.
The O2 boost is a life saver for a MM, saves you a lot of time and endurance recasting your troops. Bear in mind that with recent changes to the upgrade powers, it costs a LOT of endurance to cast the upgrade as an aoe... overall we like this yes? but it also means if you're recasting just to replace one enforcer, its very endurance costly to equip him properly. So for the enforcers, the bruiser, and the arsonist, its worth watching their health bars closely and throwing out some slotted O2 boost to keep them going. I don't find its worth re-equipping the 2 basic thugs though, so i tend to let them die if there's anything else that needs attention.
A nice synergy with thugs/storm is that you can amass a TON of defense for your gang. Both enforcers have a pet equivalent of maneuvers, which only buffs your pets, but if your pets stay halfway close together, that's 2x maneuvers for them. Now add in your own steamy mist, which is frankly even better than maneuvers. Then take maneuvers as a pool power as well. You personally will benefit from steamy and 1x maneuvers, your pets will have 3x maneuvers and steamy buffing them though, if everything's in range. That's a lot of defense... Now add in Hurricane, slotted up for -tohit it'll provie 40-50% -accuracy against foes. you know how hard it is to hit those pesky tsoo sorcerers? yeah, that. stacked with the defense, I find that my guys never take any damage, except when they get too scattered out. as long as things stay nice & tight, they're just about unhittable. It can take some time to become skilled with hurricane though, learning to use it to bump mobs closer closer together and debuffing them, without shoving them all over the place.
Snowstorm is powerful damage mitigation, i took it at lvl 4, and I use it every battle. the -62% recharge debuff helps a ton after the alpha damage, since mobs are waiting on their recharge to attack you further. Also the slow effect is useful combined with hurricane to make them easier to round up with the repel effect. I've got it slotted for endurance, slow, and the damage proc which is a nice little bonus to the power.
Freezing rain is good damage mitigation with the knockdown effect, it slows mobs further (slow cap with snowstorm), it does minus recharge (capped with snowstorm) it does -30% defense, -30% resistance, it does damage over time, and it'll hold up to 3 damage procs. need I say more?
Lightning storm just beats everything senseless and does phenominal damage for 60 seconds. you can cast more than one at a time if your recharge is quick. place it high and it'll knock things more 'down' than 'away' helping keep things tight. its a great power. crowning jewel of the set.
I'm thinking about taking thunderclap, an aoe mag 2 stun, it would only disorient minions, but that's still a lot of damage mitigation in a pinch.
tornado isn't all that great for thugs/storm. its nice on AV's, if the battle is already a scattered mess, or if you get in over your head just hit tornado & gang war and get to a safe distance. other than that, it throws things around like a drunken energy blaster. which can work against your other more aoe oriented storm powers.
Thugs is a great set as well. the defense orientation of henchmen is a great compliment to both steamy mist and hurricane. The ranged attacking helps to keep your guys at least *somewhat* centralized and under control. the bruiser will of course run wherever he pleases to go beat things up with his hands, but the others can be coaxed to not stray too far, if you keep giving them 'aggressive go-to' directions to specific spots where you want them.
I usually duo this character with another thugs/storm friend of mine. between the two of us, enemy mobs are at slow cap, minus recharge cap, accuracy debuff cap, and have 60% debuffed defense & resistance. meanwhile our minions 'share' aoe defense buffs, bringing their defense to really crazy good numbers for as long as we can keep them close together. We stealth to position ourselves around mobs, and then use 2 hurricanes to sandwhich the mobs onto double stacked freezing rain at the same time we sent our guys in to fight. its hard to beat it.
At halloween I did all of my halloween loot farming with this character. Just find a recessed doorway, turn on hurricane, put freezing rain down at the opening, open the door and stand at the right distance. cast snowstorm as soon as a mob is targetable. they end up totally pinned down and helpless while your guys fill em with lead. you could do it while eating dinner without taking any damage or risks, its that easy.
I'm kinda skeptical about tornado for this set. I use tornado + an imob power on one of my controllers, and on another controler, tornado + telekinesis in a corner. if i pick up an imob or aoe imob from the epic pool, then i'll keep tornado. if not i may drop tornado and see what else looks good in the pool powers. imob's typically come with a -KB effect, and unfortunately, tornado is kinda unruly and unhelpful if you let its KB run amok. Of course in PVP its a gem though...
I'm feeling a bit ambivalent about gang war. its definitely cool... when its recharge is up. but god that's a long recharge. I just got it, so we'll see how it pans out. if i get hasten and slot for recharge on gang war, it could prove decent.
The only thugs set attack i've taken is Empty Clips. I mostly just debuff, shove mobs where i want them, and heal my henchmen. I picked up empty clips because I really kinda wanted the magnum revolvers for my character, and because a little more aoe damage never hurt anybody (well ok, it hurts a lot of somebodies as an aoe 
but anyway)
I'm thinking I'll take mace mastery. web envelope for an aoe imob to make tornado a much more useful beast, and to further control scattering. Scorpion shield is a defense based shield, which fits in nicely with maneuvers, steamy mist, and combat jumping, all very complimentary to a slotted up Hurricane. And Mace Beam Volley looks like a nice cone attack which shares a similar size & shape with empty clips, making the two easy to stack onto mobs once in position. OR... I may drop both mace beam volley and empty clips in favor of picking up hasten and gang war. going to have to experiment & see what's best. or maybe just make room elsewhere... hmm too many good things to pick from, oh noes! maybe opressive gloom + thunderclap to be a ghetto-troller with mag 4 stacked stun? does the imob actually have an -KB effect? not all imobs do... I'm just not far enough along to make final judgements on some of the details, but thugs/storm is an epic combination.
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
That's a pretty good synopsis of what Storm brings to the mastermind table, and as you said, it's an awful lot!
I do disagree, of course, on your feelings on Gale. For a controller, particularly one with immobs, it is certainly less useful. But for everyone else, it comes in really handy as a compliment to Hurricane since the repel nerf several issues ago. Gale is great for knocking them over and sweeping them up with Hurricane. It is also a lot quicker for bunching people already near a wall together. It's also great in those times you need to help someone from far away. Not an every spawn power, but you have to take it anyway, and it's far more useful than most people give it credit for. The only real downside is its shoddy accuracy out of the box.
Ditto with Tornado. It's a power that is sorely underutilized in part because, without immobs, it doesn't fit into the "neat and tidy" way most people play. But it can come in awfully handy when you need it, and it does it with almost no cost of slots. I highly recommend it to any storm user. The uses of it are as big as your imagination. It makes a great corner puller for a tough boss, because you can drop it without line of sight. Sit back with your henchmen, a LS, freezing rain, and unleash tornado around the corner.
And tornado's damage is greatly underestimated. If you only use it on AV's, EB's, and those immune to knockback, it's still worth its power slot for the damage it can inflict. Great power!
That's kinda storm in a nutshell though, isn't it? Almost none of them need slots, although all of them benefit from them. All of the powers are useful, although you certainly don't need all of them. It's a fantastic set, and one I am happy to finally have for masterminds.
I need a bind that summons my pets than buffs them.
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
If anyone's got thoughts on a Thugs/Storm, I'd love to hear them!
Thanks.
Later on,
Gatecrasher
[/ QUOTE ]
Thugs/Storm is an awesome combination. I have a lvl 30 thugs/storm right now, and I am so anxious for 32 and 38 in particular. Storm is a POWERFUL debuff set, hitting enemies with aoe -def, -res, -rech, -tohit, -movement, and KB/KU and it also happens to include a single target heal, and fairly heavy damage output.
gale is useless, just put it somewhere you won't bump it accidentally.
The O2 boost is a life saver for a MM, saves you a lot of time and endurance recasting your troops. Bear in mind that with recent changes to the upgrade powers, it costs a LOT of endurance to cast the upgrade as an aoe... overall we like this yes? but it also means if you're recasting just to replace one enforcer, its very endurance costly to equip him properly. So for the enforcers, the bruiser, and the arsonist, its worth watching their health bars closely and throwing out some slotted O2 boost to keep them going. I don't find its worth re-equipping the 2 basic thugs though, so i tend to let them die if there's anything else that needs attention.
A nice synergy with thugs/storm is that you can amass a TON of defense for your gang. Both enforcers have a pet equivalent of maneuvers, which only buffs your pets, but if your pets stay halfway close together, that's 2x maneuvers for them. Now add in your own steamy mist, which is frankly even better than maneuvers. Then take maneuvers as a pool power as well. You personally will benefit from steamy and 1x maneuvers, your pets will have 3x maneuvers and steamy buffing them though, if everything's in range. That's a lot of defense... Now add in Hurricane, slotted up for -tohit it'll provie 40-50% -accuracy against foes. you know how hard it is to hit those pesky tsoo sorcerers? yeah, that. stacked with the defense, I find that my guys never take any damage, except when they get too scattered out. as long as things stay nice & tight, they're just about unhittable. It can take some time to become skilled with hurricane though, learning to use it to bump mobs closer closer together and debuffing them, without shoving them all over the place.
Snowstorm is powerful damage mitigation, i took it at lvl 4, and I use it every battle. the -62% recharge debuff helps a ton after the alpha damage, since mobs are waiting on their recharge to attack you further. Also the slow effect is useful combined with hurricane to make them easier to round up with the repel effect. I've got it slotted for endurance, slow, and the damage proc which is a nice little bonus to the power.
Freezing rain is good damage mitigation with the knockdown effect, it slows mobs further (slow cap with snowstorm), it does minus recharge (capped with snowstorm) it does -30% defense, -30% resistance, it does damage over time, and it'll hold up to 3 damage procs. need I say more?
Lightning storm just beats everything senseless and does phenominal damage for 60 seconds. you can cast more than one at a time if your recharge is quick. place it high and it'll knock things more 'down' than 'away' helping keep things tight. its a great power. crowning jewel of the set.
I'm thinking about taking thunderclap, an aoe mag 2 stun, it would only disorient minions, but that's still a lot of damage mitigation in a pinch.
tornado isn't all that great for thugs/storm. its nice on AV's, if the battle is already a scattered mess, or if you get in over your head just hit tornado & gang war and get to a safe distance. other than that, it throws things around like a drunken energy blaster. which can work against your other more aoe oriented storm powers.
Thugs is a great set as well. the defense orientation of henchmen is a great compliment to both steamy mist and hurricane. The ranged attacking helps to keep your guys at least *somewhat* centralized and under control. the bruiser will of course run wherever he pleases to go beat things up with his hands, but the others can be coaxed to not stray too far, if you keep giving them 'aggressive go-to' directions to specific spots where you want them.
I usually duo this character with another thugs/storm friend of mine. between the two of us, enemy mobs are at slow cap, minus recharge cap, accuracy debuff cap, and have 60% debuffed defense & resistance. meanwhile our minions 'share' aoe defense buffs, bringing their defense to really crazy good numbers for as long as we can keep them close together. We stealth to position ourselves around mobs, and then use 2 hurricanes to sandwhich the mobs onto double stacked freezing rain at the same time we sent our guys in to fight. its hard to beat it.
At halloween I did all of my halloween loot farming with this character. Just find a recessed doorway, turn on hurricane, put freezing rain down at the opening, open the door and stand at the right distance. cast snowstorm as soon as a mob is targetable. they end up totally pinned down and helpless while your guys fill em with lead. you could do it while eating dinner without taking any damage or risks, its that easy.
I'm kinda skeptical about tornado for this set. I use tornado + an imob power on one of my controllers, and on another controler, tornado + telekinesis in a corner. if i pick up an imob or aoe imob from the epic pool, then i'll keep tornado. if not i may drop tornado and see what else looks good in the pool powers. imob's typically come with a -KB effect, and unfortunately, tornado is kinda unruly and unhelpful if you let its KB run amok. Of course in PVP its a gem though...
I'm feeling a bit ambivalent about gang war. its definitely cool... when its recharge is up. but god that's a long recharge. I just got it, so we'll see how it pans out. if i get hasten and slot for recharge on gang war, it could prove decent.
The only thugs set attack i've taken is Empty Clips. I mostly just debuff, shove mobs where i want them, and heal my henchmen. I picked up empty clips because I really kinda wanted the magnum revolvers for my character, and because a little more aoe damage never hurt anybody (well ok, it hurts a lot of somebodies as an aoe but anyway)
I'm thinking I'll take mace mastery. web envelope for an aoe imob to make tornado a much more useful beast, and to further control scattering. Scorpion shield is a defense based shield, which fits in nicely with maneuvers, steamy mist, and combat jumping, all very complimentary to a slotted up Hurricane. And Mace Beam Volley looks like a nice cone attack which shares a similar size & shape with empty clips, making the two easy to stack onto mobs once in position. OR... I may drop both mace beam volley and empty clips in favor of picking up hasten and gang war. going to have to experiment & see what's best. or maybe just make room elsewhere... hmm too many good things to pick from, oh noes! maybe opressive gloom + thunderclap to be a ghetto-troller with mag 4 stacked stun? does the imob actually have an -KB effect? not all imobs do... I'm just not far enough along to make final judgements on some of the details, but thugs/storm is an epic combination.
[/ QUOTE ]
Just wanted to let everyone know that I will work on a Thugs/Storm guide.Mine has been 50 for quite some time now,and I have 2 other /Storm toons (lvl 50 Ill/Storm troller and a lvl 31 AR/Storm corr).I might know one or two things about the set ;-)
Currently I'm runnin my Thugs/Storm in Ouroboros.I'm on Protector if anyone wants to hit me up and team/ask questions,etc.My global is @Neo and my mm's name is Galeforce Gangbanger.
I'll finish the guide as soon as I can so I can post it and get some feedback on it.
Later
A bunch of 50s and too many alts...
Neo's Guide To Thugs/Storm (need to update it)
www.facebook.com/bbirgephotos
Questions about Fire/Rad? Just ask!
Sorry if this has been discussed ad nauseum, but... are protector bots ever going to get fixed so they don't get stuck?
I love the new equip/upgrade aura thing, but it really stinks when you have to dismiss a stuck robot and resummon it. Or to be pressured to get 'recall friend.'
Neo's Guide to Thugs/Storm Summoning
http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showflat....=0#Post12909133
A bunch of 50s and too many alts...
Neo's Guide To Thugs/Storm (need to update it)
www.facebook.com/bbirgephotos
Questions about Fire/Rad? Just ask!
[ QUOTE ]
That's a pretty good synopsis of what Storm brings to the mastermind table, and as you said, it's an awful lot!
I do disagree, of course, on your feelings on Gale. For a controller, particularly one with immobs, it is certainly less useful. But for everyone else, it comes in really handy as a compliment to Hurricane since the repel nerf several issues ago. Gale is great for knocking them over and sweeping them up with Hurricane. It is also a lot quicker for bunching people already near a wall together. It's also great in those times you need to help someone from far away. Not an every spawn power, but you have to take it anyway, and it's far more useful than most people give it credit for. The only real downside is its shoddy accuracy out of the box.
Ditto with Tornado. It's a power that is sorely underutilized in part because, without immobs, it doesn't fit into the "neat and tidy" way most people play. But it can come in awfully handy when you need it, and it does it with almost no cost of slots. I highly recommend it to any storm user. The uses of it are as big as your imagination. It makes a great corner puller for a tough boss, because you can drop it without line of sight. Sit back with your henchmen, a LS, freezing rain, and unleash tornado around the corner.
And tornado's damage is greatly underestimated. If you only use it on AV's, EB's, and those immune to knockback, it's still worth its power slot for the damage it can inflict. Great power!
That's kinda storm in a nutshell though, isn't it? Almost none of them need slots, although all of them benefit from them. All of the powers are useful, although you certainly don't need all of them. It's a fantastic set, and one I am happy to finally have for masterminds.
[/ QUOTE ]
gale is more useful than I let on. I often see people using it poorly though. my first 50 and most heavily played character is a mind/storm which has no imob. So I've had time to mess around with its uses as a knockback cone. Its a power people should approach minimalisticly though, adding it in as they figure out decent spot uses for it, not spamming it the best use of it IMO is to hover overhead, and gale straight down onto mobs, it knocks them flat without scattering them.
and yes, i do use it to help position mobs with hurricane. One correction though, I find that when mobs are knocked down, they become momentarily immune to the repel effect in hurricane, this apparent bug seriously hurts hurricane's ability to herd mobs up. Gale is still useful to help shove errant mobs into a dead end or corner or wall though.
I'm really quite unhappy with the hurricane nerf, its nigh impossible to use hurricane alone to push anything where you want to now. mobs run past your hurricane without much impediment, and then get randomly knocked back by it in directions you didn't want. 
although it works pretty decently if used with snowstorm to slow mobs down. at any rate, whether you move them much or not, its great to use as a debuff. the -tohit lasts for like 10 seconds so occassional nudging with the hurricane is enough to get the effect you want
tornado is great, didn't mean to imply otherwise its just something to be used carefully, and its not quite as great as i've seen some people suggest. I like it for av's eb's anything that's imobed, anything in tight quarters (like those zig-zag rooms in sewers or the office building rooms, anything with a door on it really). and ya it doesn't take much slotting, and its godly in pvp. just don't shoot yourself (or especially your team) in the foot with it. tornado does a LOT of damage on anything that isn't going to bounce around, because it spends all its time ticking off dmg in a steady stream instead of spending much of its time traveling to do 1 tick of damage on a mob that gets tossed.
also, not sure about the non-slotting potency. i always 6slot freezing rain, steamy mist, and lightning storm
oh, and a last thought on lightning storm, slot it up with tons of recharge in set-based IO's. it'll make happiness
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
All Those Orange Numbers: The i13 Guide to Bots/Storm Masterminds
Enjoy!
Serge Ta'Null
Server: Virtue (14 L50 toons and counting...)
All Those Orange Numbers: The i13 Guide to Bots/Storm Masterminds
[ QUOTE ]
and yes, i do use it to help position mobs with hurricane. One correction though, I find that when mobs are knocked down, they become momentarily immune to the repel effect in hurricane, this apparent bug seriously hurts hurricane's ability to herd mobs up.
[/ QUOTE ]
That "bug" or whatever we want to refer to it as affects a lot of things getting up from knockback. However, all we really need is to keep the enemies off balance so they are not coming directly at you, that way we can move them around a bit.
I move enemies around a lot on all of my stormies. Gale is my sledge hammer, and hurricane is my chisel.
I made a /Pain guide oriented specifically for Masterminds, so everyone please feel free to go there, check and comment!
Sharing the Pain - A Mastermind guide to Pain Domination
Oh yes, and if possible I'd like to see this guide pinned on our Masterminds Guides topic.
- Dual Blades Stalker Guide
- Mastermind guide to Pain Domination
Pain Guide in my sig
I wish there was a Necro/Storm guide. I team with a bud of mine and from seeing his henchman cast all the debuff powers PLUS hurricane no one was ever hit.
I wanted storm with more melee toons like Ninja or Necro b/c hurricane really seems to shine with melee pets. Mercs, Thugs and Bots synergize as well but a lot of those pets stay at range and I want to play something completely diff than my Merc/Traps which was all about keeping as far away from the baddies as possible.
If anyone's got thoughts on a Thugs/Storm, I'd love to hear them!
Thanks.
Later on,
Gatecrasher
@Generator
Mostly Pinnacle, with scattered alts on Liberty, Freedom, and Justice.
I had a great time playing with you!