Dark Miasma/Storm Summoning - Are They Powerful Sets?

You guys really turned a thread about Storm and Dark into another "lol healers" thread? Really?

Don't we have enough of those?

Quick posting heh

Storm and Dark Miasma are to me the most heartbreaking powersets to use and to see being used when PuG'ing alot like I do.

One is overly noticeable for its drawbacks when used by n00bs who dont understand it, leading to n00b teamleaders dismissing it.

One is painfully un-noticeable even when skillfully used, leading to n00b teamleaders dismissing it. Makes it even worst in that case.

While both are potent enough to lead a team into battle. So to the OP, yes, both sets are definatly top performers in my book, they also have a steep learning curve to overcome before reaching that potential.

I noticed some peoples concern with storm summoning was the lack of -regen for tackling AVs. Though those comments were a few pages back in the thread, I wanted to point out that a tornado slotted up for damage is a pretty effective way to negate an AVs regen. You can get them out fast enough to keep on almost constantly on the AV, and not only does it do a great amount of damage, it debuffs their defense too!

In my experiences, my storm/dark has been able to make AVs melt. I've been able to spam TT enough to actually get an immob down on the AV, and with their inherent kb protection, Tornado does not send them flying, neither does lightning cloud. I think storms can handle AVs perfectly fine.

Regen debuffs take a more significant role when you have a very small team taking on a hard target, including the case of someone soloing an AV. The larger -Regen effects range in magnitude from -500% to -1000% before resistances, which work out to about -75% to -150% after resistance for AVs around level 50. This, scaled by an AV's large HP/sec regen rate is a larger effective DPS contribution than someone solo, or maybe even 2-3 characters can sometimes dish out.

In contrast, -DR effects swing to the forefront on a large team. Because of how DR debuffs interact with resistances, an X% DR debuff is always an X% increase in damage inflicted. Because of this, it's likely that an extra 20-30% total DPS increase for a large team will outweigh the effective DPS increase of even a 100% regen rate debuff.

The exception might be if the foe has very high resistances, which means that even a 20-30% increase in total team DPS might not be enough to counter an AV's regen. The Mistress of Mystery Carnie AV comes to mind.

In any case, if you tend to play with your Stormie on large teams, this might explain your sense that all is well despite the lack of -Regen in Storm Summoning. While you lack that, you have a very nice DR and Defense debuff power in Freezing Rain.