I have one in the early twenties. It does feel a bit underpowered sometimes - Corruptor Energy Blast is like that - but flinging everything around like toys is great fun. Even things like CoT ghosts typically can be knocked around with a Hurricane + a barrage of Energy attacks. And they hate energy damage.
First, I did pick up Stimulant/Aid Self. Second, I find that the biggest survival enhancer is Freezing Rain + Hurricane; instead of pulling with the snipe, I drop Freezing Rain, get them bouncing and get in close so anything trying to leave the patch gets Hurricaned. If possible I shove them into a corner and pin them; remember than the debuffs of Freezing Rain and Hurricane persist for a short time; shoving them out of the patch doesn't un-debuff them. I went Hasten/Superspeed, both to stack with Steamy Mist for invisibility, and because Hasten helps a lot spamming Freezing Rain ( among other things, but Freezing is just that good ).
Hurricane if you haven't got it yet is very useful for keeping you alive; so many of the nastier enemies love to get into melee which debuffs them like crazy against Hurricane. I slot 2 endurance reduction/2 accuracy debuff as standard for that by the way.
Arc #40529 : The Furies of the Earth
Thanks a ton for the input.
I can deal with " a little underpowered ". I cannot deal with "downtime approaching playtime". A little underpowered means I'll hang on. 
Anyways, about the medicine pool - with prereq, travelpowerprereq, fitnesspool-prereq, hasten-prereq...I am looking at a ton of prereq-powers, somehow - how would you go about that? Right off the bat, I consider delaying travel power and prereq and get by with jet- and jumppacks, and hasten will get pushed past level 20 as well (I tried it on my 25ish sonic/dark-banshee-corr which I dumped because of th god-awful sound effects and without decent recharge I often don't use hasten at all cause it might come in handier lateron :P).
I run my level 44 storm/energy defender solo most of the time. I don't know corruptors well enough to know how applicable defender experiences are, but maybe something here will help. Also I've got a couple storm controllers and a storm mastermind, as well as my main being an energy blaster. They're great powersets if you love knockback.
First thing: you haven't said what level you are, other than pre-SO. It gets better with SOs. Unless I flat out hate the powers, I try not to give up on anyone until they've gotten SOs. Later, you can get another effectiveness bump that's nearly as good just by slotting set IOs for increased bonuses to the powers (not the set bonuses, just the extra enhancement to the powers themselves over and above what you can do with single-effect IOs or SO), and in particular Thunderstrike is great in a stormie with energy blasts, as it boosts ranged defense, and you will have many powers to keep things at range. But that's later on, and before you even have SOs, survival is definitely tougher.
First, your issues:
1) Health. The best early tools to help with this are Freezing Rain (six-slotted in every stormie I have) and Thunder Clap (great out of the box, better with slots). I don't know what the corruptor values are for TC, but even controllers get pretty good use out of it. What I do is learn the timing on Freezing Rain, and when it's about to run out, I'll charge in and use Thunder Clap. Later, when you have Hurricane, the trick to remember is that TC takes a while to animate, but it calculates who it applies to the instant you fire it off. Thus, you can charge in with Hurricane on, hit TC, and even though mobs go flying away from you, they'll still stun if TC hits. For best results, I cast a Tornado behind me first, and it comes in and stuns things *again* when it catches up to me. Stun-riffic.
2) Unreliable knockback. This is a problem until you have Hurricane and the end to run it. I tend to slot the cone attack, whatever that's called, out of Energy Blast for recharge and using it instead of Gale, which has terrible accuracy. Needs a couple of acc if you're going to use it. I don't slot any powers for knockback though; once you have Tornado and Lightning Storm going, and your full attack chain slotted up, you won't be hurting for knockback.
3) Endurance. Yup. It's harsh. I slot for end reduction instead of damage until at least DOs and sometimes until SOs, when Stamina is available and fully slotted. You don't mention Snow Storm, but I don't run that solo except on really nasty bosses or EBs.
Your proposed solutions:
a) Health. I did take this. Can't really speak to how much it helps, never 3-slotted it. For me, storm is about mitigation via stun and tossing things into the wall, not regen. I just carry greens, breakfrees, and the odd blue and it works.
b) Medicine Pool. I didn't bother. It's two powers and a lot of slots to make it work (needs interrupt reducers too), and unless you take Power Boost, it doesn't do *that* much. On the plus side, once you get more tools, you'll be able to use it while the mobs contend with your chaos.
c) Tactics. I didn't even take the snipe. All the rest of the powers are relatively close range. I may yet take it, but I get along fine without it. At low level, I figure out how much I can do with the two fairly reliable powers (Freezing Rain and Thunder Clap), and don't take on more than that. Also, you can use Freezing Rain from around a corner, and just take on whatever breaks free of it and charges you, then stun with TC the rest of the group when it comes for you. I'm pretty sure even at low level you can have the effects of FR or TC active all the time, between the two of them.
d) I slot Freezing Rain with three recharge right away. Later I do a complicated frankenslot to get max recharge/slow/defense debuff, but that's IOs, and that power has multiple effects I want. Thunder Clap is much simpler, and it's such a staple that even if you don't craft IOs, you can up its effectiveness greatly by buying premade IOs from the stun sets. I aim for plenty of accuracy and max recharge and stun. I don't recommend slotting knockback into the attacks at this point. I do try to work range into the energy blast cone, but it's not a game-changer.
And lastly, I don't bother with Hasten. Freezing Rain comes up often enough. Tornado, Thunder Clap, and Lightning Storm all recharge before they run out, once you slot them. Hasten won't perma any more without massive global recharge, so I really dislike depending on it. I don't think storm needs it, honestly.
Hope this helps.
Virtue
Angel Witch II - Chord of Souls - Storm Witch II - Princess of the Dawn - Standing Horse - Witch of Xymox
Silent Scream - Shadow Witch II - Liquid Serenade - Nebulous Dawn - Ghost Witch II -Xiberia
Angel Witch II - Chord of Souls - Storm Witch II - Princess of the Dawn - Standing Horse - Witch of Xymox
Silent Scream - Shadow Witch II - Liquid Serenade - Nebulous Dawn - Ghost Witch II -Xiberia
Quote:
I wouldn't insist on two end reducers, but I would insist on THREE tohit debuffs. This is what will help keep you alive when your foes are not flopping in the freezing rain.
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Originally Posted by Obscure Blade
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Hurricane if you haven't got it yet is very useful for keeping you alive; so many of the nastier enemies love to get into melee which debuffs them like crazy against Hurricane. I slot 2 endurance reduction/2 accuracy debuff as standard for that by the way. |
Triumphant Defenders Forever
Psylenz FF/Psi, ArticQuark Storm/Rad, Symon BarSisyphus Bots/psn, Max VanSydow Thugs/Dk, Cyclone Symon Bots/stm, Blue Loki Ice/Cd, Widow 46526
HelinCarnate:OMG it is so terrible. I have the option to take 3 more powers but no additional slots. Boo F'ing hoo.
I just created the same character build. I've had no problems soloing except for when I'm against foes with nothing but ranged attacks. In that case I just fire off hurricane and get in a little closer so that the to-hit debuff takes effect. The massive amount of knockback tends to make up for the lack of health and heals.
Ahoy and hello, evilmongers and associates
I just started a fresh and shiny energy/storm corruptor. Why? Simple - I so far have levelled a fire/dark brute to 40 - and am stuck there because I am somewhat bored. I hop into a group, fire off the same attack chains over and over again and swear at flying mobs.
Since I am somewhat paranoid about group play (me being absolutely inexperienced with group play in general) because I have seen the consequences of joining a random group of people if you don't know what you're doing firsthand in many other games - cussing and general failure do not an enjoyable evening make - for me at least. For guilds - or super-/villaingroups, I don't have enough spare time.
So - I am soloing exclusively. That's one cornerstone of what I want to do.
Why did I pick the combination I picked? Because a) I absolutely ADORE the ragdoll animations - they convey an absolutely fabulous "super-power"-feeling, b) because I wanted a ranged combatant with a more strategic approach to fighting than the tactical approach of the brute and c) because I like the energy powers graphics-wise.
I am somewhat at a loss though when it comes to countering several problems I encountered.
1. The biggest problem - my green bar. No heals in the primary and secondary leaves me with inspirations and the rest-button, which is not enough. Every other spawn, I am falling dangerously low, which makes it risky to engage another group of enemies without some annoying downtime.
2. No plan survives contact with the enemy. Simply put, I cannot rely on knockback from energy/ which for me is a problem. When I really need a knockback, I have to rely on gale. When I absolutely don't want a knockback (e.g. danger of adding another spawn), I might fling mobs everywhere. Wouldn't be that much of a problem, though, if it weren't for problem 1.
3. Finally, a lesser problem I encountered is my rapidly diminishing blue bar. Energy/ really uses up a lot of gasoline even at half speed. Stamina will solve that, I hope.
Now, how do I best deal with these issues, I wonder?
A couple of things have crossed my mind - a) getting health asap, three-slotting it; b) picking up the selfheal from the medicine pool (which I would most likely do with a free respec, since 4 levels without shiny new powers frustrates me, and as a soloist the first two medicine powers are...well. Apart from that, c)I don't know if I should engage spawns differently. Right now, I mostly pull from afar with the snipe, so that I don't eat lead from all enemies at once before they start flying; and d) slotting - knockback into the damage powers? range enhancers? That would mean problem 3 would become more of an issue, because less accuracy/damage means more end/mob.
I would very much appreciate any and all advice from the "pros", as well as a primer on how I can expect my powerset combination to evolve once SOs are available and I get to the big guns - because, frankly, if my corruptor plays itself as it does know in the thirties, I will scrap it and never look back.
Oh, and my apologies if parts of or even the whole post are hard to understand - not a native speaker here