Advice for a Storm/Elec Defender?

Hello, as this thread title suggests, I'll be making a Storm/Elec defender soon, actually it will be my Prae character for the upcoming Going Rogue content. I've heard people comment that "Storm" was a tricky powerset and such. I was wondering if anyone had some useful advice and tips for my Primary and/or secondary...

In terms of power selection, slotting, and especially tactics.

Everything I have to say on the powers from Gale to Freezing Rain can be found through the link in my sig. Read some of the replies too, as I haven't gone back to incorporate good suggestions into the main guide. Hopefully I'll have hurricane up by early next week.

I consider myself to be quite an experienced Storm player. What I can tell you right away is that Storm is not easy to play with. At least not until you realize how to play with it.

Things to know when playing a Storm toon:

- It requires a brain. Seriously. Rad and Dark are just too easy to play with and it's hard to mess up when playing those sets. A bad/careless Stormy, on the other hand, can lead yourself and your team mates to frustration.
- It requires patience.
- It requires a lot of moving around. Positioning matters. A lot.
- It will piss off people if you don't use your positioning tools correctly.
- You'll be awesome when you get your key powers and learn how to use them.

Storm powers:

Gale v O2 Boost

This has been debated ever since Storm set was released. Gale is a huge KB cone and, imo, a very decent positioning tool - specially on indoor maps. O2 boost is a decent heal -when slotted- and provides some status protection.

If you decide to go with O2 boost, know 2 things: a) you might get a "Wtf?! Heal!!!" out of a few less bright team mates ; b) You'll be a lot busier trying to keep the status protection on the squishies, when you could be doing some more debuffing/cornering.

As a Storm/Dark, I like playing it as an offender. I'll take the alpha, I'll herd, I'll position the mob where I want them to be, I'll debuff and I'll mezz. Also, my build is too tight so I don't have spare slots to spend on O2 Boost and make it a decent(ish) heal. Sure, I could stick with O2 Boost and put an Endreduction on it and use it on squishies. But I prefer Gale.

TL;DR - Pick your poison. O2 Boost = decent heal, good status protection (sleep, stun and end drain) to your team mates. Gale = Better positioning; knockback = 2, 3 seconds of damage mitigation.


Snow Storm

I've seen way too many players skipping this power. Myself, I find it awesome. -62,5% recharge translates in a awful lot damage mitigation. Also, it slows down the enemies, taking the most out of a lot of location AoEs attacks (Rain of Fire, Ice Storm, Blizzard, etc) and location AoEs debuffs (Freezing Rain, Disruption Arrow, Tar Patch, etc).

Do you need to slot it for +Slow? You could, but I find and Endurance Reduction to be the best choice. Keep in mind that Freezing Rain on top of Snow Storm caps the +Slow component (I could be wrong about this).


Steamy Mist

Take it, slot it, and use it all the time. It is that good. ~30% resistance to some nasty damage types like Fire, Cold and Energy (and confuse resistance), paired with some defense and stealth. What's not to like?

Use it correctly! Don't stand back, leaving your team mates out of Steamy Mist's radius. That would be a waste of its damage mitigation potential.

Also, if you pair it with Super Speed, you'll be granted full invisibility.


Freezing Rain

I honestly think this is one of the best debuffs in the whole CoX universe. Unslotted, FR will debuff the foes resistance and defense by 35% and 30%, respectively. As if that's not enough it adds up +slow, -recharge and knockdown to the equation. Better yet, it will be perma with 3 L50 recharge IOs.

As I've already mentioned, you can use it paired with Snow Storm for some serious -recharge and -movement. It also helps you keeping them cornered with Hurricane, Gale or Lightning Storm.

You do NOT want to slot this for damage. Your priority is to maximize the recharge, then get some Defense Debuff and Endurance Reduction. You can easily get good numbers with 4 slots only and some frankenslotting.


Hurricane

Some players love it, others hate it. I love it very much and it can be used in many ways. The most typical is to use it after you corner the baddies - it will keep them in that spot, debuffed to the eyeballs and getting constantly repelled and kb'ed. However, Hurricane alone isn't enough to keep them in place as the baddies can often escape from the corner. This is where Gale, for example, becomes extremely handy. But other powers can be used, such as Freezing Rain (keeps them on their bottom, while getting repelled by Hurricane) and Lightning Storm (if you place it strategically it will knock the foes back to the corner). And, of course, if you have a /Dark defender with Tenebrous Tentacles or a controller with AoE immobilizes your task becomes much easier.

There are other uses for Hurricane such as:

Herding - Turn your steamy mist and superspeed/flight/SJ on and go harass some foes. Then run back and hide in a corner. Lay your Freezing Rain a few feet before the corner so they start getting debuffed and kocked down before they get to you. If you feel like it, you can also try and get them into the corner you were hiding at, using Hurricane and Gale.

Melee safety - Protect yourself and the squishies from melee attacks simply by standing back with the Blasters/Trollers/Defenders/Squids and turning Hurricane on. The repel, knockback and debuff will keep you safe for most cases.

Smart debuffing - Yea, I didn't know what else to call it here. What I mean here is that you can and should run around a spawn debuffing them while keeping them packed or at least not scattering them too much. You don't need the foes to be inside the hurricane for them to get debuffed. The debuff works even if you are a few feet away from them (I don't know the exact distance, maybe some1 will jump in and give you the right numbers).


Thunder Clap

It's probably one of the coolest looking powers in game. However, I wouldn't advise you to take it unless you have any other Stun power to stack it with. If you go with Dark Mastery, for example, and pick Oppressive Gloom, then it might be a good pick.

Still, I would advise you to go with Electric Mastery so you could use Power Sink + Short Circuit and become a very effective sapper (end drainer).


Tornado

Another love it or hate it power. This is probably the power I find more situational in the whole set (on pair with Thunder Clap, unless you have another stun to stack with).

I use it mainly for AV/GM fights or against foes that wont get KB'ed or even on small rooms (like those rooms in the Reactor mission of Respec Trial) for some safe and yet not-so-messy chaos. It's DoT potential should not be overlooked.

It does a very decent damage over time while it adds up a little more -Defense to the game. It also has KB (obviously) and disorient components. While I haven't tried - or better yet, I haven't bothered testing - you can slot it with the Achilles proc. I'd probably put it on Freezing Rain instead tho.


Lightning Storm

And finally, the power most Stormies look forward to - the awesome cloud. How you use it, it's pretty much straight forward but you'll learn with time that there are optimal ways of placing it.

Lightning Cloud has a very tiny cone and it can hit up to 3-4 foes if your lucky/smart enough.

So how do you get it to hit multiple foes? Well, if you've ever played a Scrapper, you'll probably have experienced that some powers (like Eviscerate, Headsplitter, Ripper) can hit several foes if they're lined up or really tight together. The same logic can be applied to Lightning Cloud. However, LS has a knockback component which means if you hit 3 foes at once they'll fall back and get scattered a little. By doing so, it's every unlikely LS will hit the 3 of them again. Unless... you keep positioning the mobs with other storm tools. For example, if you manage to corner up 5-8 foes and place LS really close to them and lay Freezing Rain to keep them in place, LS might hit several foes more than once.

Keep in mind LS will hit the closes target(s). Also, you can turn knockback into knockdown by simply placing the cloud right above the mobs. It's not very practical or easy to do without Hover but it will decrease the scattering/kb and increase the chances of LS hitting multiple foes.


That's about it. These are my basic thoughts on Storm set. Eventually you'll come with your very own ideas and opinions about the set and its powers and you'll become - I hope - a fan of Storm goodness.

When it comes to Electric Blast, I'll leave it to someone else to look into it more deeply but basically I would pick the two blasts, ball lightning, short circuit and maybe aim and Thunderous Blast if you really want a (very very awesome looking) nuke. Voltaic Sentinel would add some more DPS but I can't find the duration, end cost and cast time very appealing.

Like I said earlier, I would advise you to go Storm/Elec/Elec for the sake of Power Sink + Short Circuit. I have that combo on my Elec^3 blaster and it makes everything really easy and safe.

As for the slotting and IO bonuses, I'd recommend you to slot endurance reductions on most powers as Storm is a bit endurance heavy (yet another reason to go with Elec mastery and grab Power Sink). Endurance recovery bonuses are always very handy on a Stormy.

Don't get obsessed about recharge bonuses. Having 2 permanent Lightning Storms would be delightful, yes, but you can achieve greater things if you try and balance your build a bit more. Myself, I went for 36% ranged defense paired with very decent endurance recovery and I can still get 2 lightning clouds out for 20 seconds or so. That's more than enough for me. As a result, I rarely die and I tend to play very aggressively.

Hope this helps a little.

PS: Damn, this is a long post. I got carried away I guess eheh.

Just some quick clarifications:

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Originally Posted by False_Fiction_EU b) You'll be a lot busier trying to keep the status protection on the squishies, when you could be doing some more debuffing/cornering.

The nice thing about O2 boost is that you can use it while still cornering a mob, whereas you would need to run over to tag an enemy with hurricane and could cause some serious chaos with gale if you're not positioned correctly. O2 boost can be a great precision tool in these situations. Also, pay attention to the situation, depending on the play style of the squishies and the enemies that you are up against, it often isn't necessary to constantly spam O2 boost on them. Also be sure not to under estimate the benefits of providing end drain protection!

Quote:

Do you need to slot it for +Slow? You could, but I find and Endurance Reduction to be the best choice. Keep in mind that Freezing Rain on top of Snow Storm caps the +Slow component (I could be wrong about this).

Basically true. There are detailed numbers in my guide, but for non AV (and their EB equivalent) enemies up to +3, this will floor slow.

Quote:

Also, if you pair it with Super Speed, you'll be granted full invisibility.

A stealth IO will also grant you full invisibility and save you a power.

Quote:

Freezing Rain Better yet, it will be perma with 3 L50 recharge IOs.

Well....not quite true. Since Freezing Rain is currently bugged, there is about a 65% chance that the debuff will end after 15 seconds if enemies are still in the rain when the rain ends. Thus a 30 second recharge won't get you perma FR debuff. (If working as described, 45 second recharge should be sufficient to perma this debuff).

Quote:

You do NOT want to slot this for damage. Your priority is to maximize the recharge, then get some Defense Debuff and Endurance Reduction. You can easily get good numbers with 4 slots only and some frankenslotting.

I would recommend focusing on recharge for FR as well, but if you want to do damage with it, it is also viable to slot procs (again more detailed breakdown in the guide)

Quote:

Don't get obsessed about recharge bonuses. Having 2 permanent Lightning Storms would be delightful, yes, but you can achieve greater things if you try and balance your build a bit more. Myself, I went for 36% ranged defense paired with very decent endurance recovery and I can still get 2 lightning clouds out for 20 seconds or so. That's more than enough for me. As a result, I rarely die and I tend to play very aggressively.

I have two builds on my storm. My main teaming build goes for high recharge and gets perma 2 Lightning storms with some overlap on a third, freezing rain with almost 15 seconds recharge so even if its bugged I can perma it and usually stack it for AVs. If necessary, O2 boost recharges fast enough that I can be quite an effective healer. On teams, I find that I rarely have trouble staying alive (I don't even take my epic shield) and so the more debuffing/buffing, and damage I can dish out, the better. Ranged defense would just be wasted. I find that my storm powers are usually sufficient to keep me alive on my own. However, if you find that you are face planting frequently, ranged defense might be worthwhile. (Also it tends to be cheaper than building for recharge).

My secondary build is a high defense build that I use for soloing AVs, but if I'm just soloing standard missions I tend to use my team build because it's more efficient (if not as safe).

One other little feature of O2 is that it gives +perception. I SEE you little miss night widow.

I beat this like a drum, but snowstorm has an interrupt feature for particular spawns with undesirable properties such as the kamikaze embalmed and CoT mages, the sky raider engineers, Rikti communications officers. I am leaving off something, but you can see snow storm is slow and MORE.

I love Snow Storm for its de-fly alone. The interruption and slow is gravy.

As a general guide for your build, don't plan on skipping many primaries. Storm/elec is a strong primary, so-so secondary pairing. If you have to cut back on secondaries or power pools, that's fine, since your primary is highly self sufficient. If I were to roll storm/elec, my power breakdown would be: 9 primaries, 7 secondaries, 8 pools/APPs. Your tastes may vary.

A separate solo build with 8 primaries (no O2) is not a terrible idea.