ninja/ storm teaming advise please

Hello everyone. Let me first of all say that as someone who has only been playing for about a week, there is a massive amount of information to digest, but it has been broken down very well on the forums.

With that said, however, I cant seem to find some information on how this combo would work teamed with my wife's fire/dark corrupter. I have been playing a necro/dark MM for the last week and while its alot of fun, i got my wife interested and shes looking at the fire/dark combo i figured the essential debuffs from dark are covered so i would take something a little more offensive.

Good idea? Bad idea? Any leveling / slotting advise? Shes pretty deadset on the corrupter and i really like the MM playstyle so if anyone has some better combo advise id like to hear it.

Thanks for your help !

First, welcome to the game! MM's are my personal favorite AT, but I don't have much experience playing ninjas and much less with /storm.

That said, I believe you picked a very good set to compliment fire/dark corruptor. Fire/dark will be an AoE powerhouse of damage and Ninjas are very single target oriented, so you should be able to take anything down. Her /dark is going to help protect and keep your pets alive. Storm is, from what I hear, very difficult to play properly, but can be very powerful if you can. I think you're going to have a lot of fun with this.

I would suggest looking in the defender forums for a guide on how to play /storm.

I'm playing a Nin/Storm as well. I'm absolutely loving it! I mostly solo, but I will share what I know from my teaming experience, and good sense with the set.

Storm is very heavy on knockback effects. It is very easy to knock foes around, and move them out of area of effect powers (like your wifes fireball/rain of fire/tar patch, your freezing rain etc...). Learn to position yourself so that you are facing a wall/corner that might not scatter the targets so much then use Gale. Gale can be used to sweep foes within it's nice cone range. I use it to control mob placement before I start laying down other effects. You can do this with Hurricane as well, but I find it a bit more risky. Just ease your way into the bad guys while Hurricane is running, and be mindful of your position relative to the target. Does it sound it takes practice? Well it does! Practice with Gale as you leveling, and you will get a basic understanding of what to expect out of Hurricane (it's point blank area, so it can throw mobs that are behind you the opposite direction). Hurricane does have a nice to hit debuff with it so it's useful for that effect. Tornado, and Lightening Storm are potentially big damage for you, but can throw foes around if you don't pay attention. Those 4 powers are the knockback powers, and take the most practice. Eventually, if you want a Patron, Mu offers Electric Fences that can negate the knockback. You can plant the fences on a target, and summon a Tornado on it. Sounds like Win right? It is! The other Patrons offer nice stuff too, but I like Mu for the effects plus theme.

While you are leveling up I would suggest you rotate your use of Freezing Rain with your wife's Tar Patch. They have long cooldowns and both reduce resistances. If you leap frog them while you move from group to group you should hopefully have one of them up most of the time. That will go a long way towards making packs of baddies easier to take out. Snow Storm will be up for you just about every group most likely, and you should use it as much as possible. You and your wife might want to pick a target as your "anchor". Let her place Darkest Night on it with your Snow Storm. Then you both leave it alone as best you can despite all the splash damage. Once the other targets are down you can then finish off the anchor. I like Bosses/LT's for this since they have more hit points, and the debuffs those powers provide will effect more minions as I tend to clean them up. Since the bigger baddy at that point is pretty much neutralized I save them for last with little fear of retaliation.

I think that covers the bulk of Storm in a nut shell. With Ninjas make sure you watch over them, and be mindful of who they are attacking. I use the advanced pet controls, and usually I just select a few staple commands to drag onto my tool bar. I have an all pets passive, follow, go to, and attack. Then I get more specific. I like to keep the Genin on defensive most of the time, but I have specific go to/attack/follow etc.. for them. I have that for my Jounin, and Oni as well so I can move them specifically if I want. I also have aggressive modes set up for just the Jounin/Oni so I have more flexibility in my offensive/defensive game plan.

You'll have enough to do managing your spaz ninja, and storm powers that you can skip the 3 archery powers. You can skip Thunder Clap too if you like, but most of the Storm powers are worth taking once you learn how to use them.

Things for the Fire/Dark. Flares, Blazing Bolt, and Inferno I find skippable. Inferno is big damage, but it drains endurance. Some like nukes others don't. Look into the Corrupter forums for the various opinions on tier 9 blasts. Blazing Bolt is a sniper attack, and I also find those lackluster. Again you can find more on that in the same forum. As for the /Dark side of things she should look to take most of the secondary except Black Hole. She could skip Petrifying Gaze, but even without damage I happen to like the Hold it does. It can also stack later on with a Patron Hold, and that is just good times. Otherwise she should take everything else. Slot Twilight Grasp with 1-2 accuracy then a combo of heal, recharge, and endurance. Oh, and she shouldn't be scared of mixing it up in melee range with your pets. That way she can heal them with the Twilight Grasp. If she takes damage you can heal her with O2 Boost. This should be pretty easy from the get go with Darkest Night + Snow Storm. Even easier later on if she Fears a group first. A big focus for her is going to be to hit debuff. Powers that should get that enhancement are; Darkest Night, and Dark Servant (aka Fluffy). You can slot Fearsome Stare for to hit debuff or fear duration. Fear would probably work best since she can help lockdown several targets at once for a good bit of time. Between your Hurricane, and her powers to hit debuff should be good. She should take Tar Patch, and try to time it's use with Rain of Fire (that combo of powers alone will kill most groups). Even if you don't expect your MM to die often she should take Howling Twilight. I see so many /dark users skip this because it's a resurrection power. That's only PART of it. It's a disorient, and it halts hit point regeneration for a time. It's worth it for that last part on tough opponents so that they don't naturally heal faster than you can damage them. The fact it can revive an ally is just a nice side effect. When playing my Necro/Dark I'll often use this power if my party is alive. Oh did I mention it's auto hit? Yeah, unlike Thunder Clap that has a hit check with a penalty Howling Twilight just does it's effects regardless. Pick a target, and debuff a group. Yay! It just has a long recharge as it's set back, but it's worth having.

I'm getting wordy with my information over load, but hopefully something in my wall of text helps you. A Necro/Dark wouldn't be a bad pair with her Fire/Dark. Just major over kill on the debuffs. At least with Ninja/Storm you will bring a high damage primary with a high damage secondary to her high damage primary, and heavy debuff secondary. I really doubt you will have much trouble in mowing things down.

Good luck!

Thanks so much for that extensive write up !

So far its been a lot of fun. Since neither one of us are a melee class we're free to knock mobs all over the place, root em, snare em, etc etc. Only thing we're careful about is the placement of her tarpatch and keeping the mobs in it, but im going to get freezing rain soon so thats going to help alot.

Edit- Should i worry about taking +def powers to help the ninjas out or just focus all on offense?