DS/Storm, anything to avoid?

DS ive got figured out but Storm I have no exp in. Ofcourse ive seen storm in action many times and its like radiation, its an extremely powerful debuff set. I know some things should be taken and slotted accordingly but like many debuff sets it may look good on paper but isn't ingame. Is there anything I should completely avoid in the set or frakenslot or take for absolute sure? Pretty much the only thing I know should be taken and slotted for sure is Freezing Rain.

Quick and dirty /Storms basics:

Gale: You're forced to take it, but don't waste slots on it, unless you find yourself with an overabundance, and can afford to six slot it. Then it can be used as a set mule. You... aren't likely to have that many slots.

O2 boost - Typical heal, provides stun protection. A Single Target ally heal is a very good friend for any Mastermind... so take it, slot it up (at least to 5 slots) and you're good.

Snow Storm - Not the most useful power. Can be good to help keep things in the rain, and grounding fliers, but not essential. Take it if you can work it in, but don't feel too worried if you can't.

Steamy Mist - Take it, and slot up its resistance. It's not really as helpful as others - Demons already get good Fire and Ice resistances. But the Energy resist is nice, and the more resistance is always welcome. If you can six slot this one, adding in some defense is also good.

Freezing Rain - Get recharge in this, use it often. But you knew that already.

Hurricane - The tricky power of the set. Great for personal protection, not so great for scattering everything hither and yon. You'll have to learn how to really use this power before you can get good performance out of it. Here's a tip - it's actually larger than the visible cues would indicate.

Thunder Clap - Ahahahahah... right. Don't take this power. Not unless you want to stack it with something from your Epic pool... and even then, you probably don't want it until you have the Epic power.

Tornado - The other power that can cause insta-fail as a Stormie, Tornadoe can be devastating in some situations... but only causes chaos and disorder in most. Don't use it unless you know it won't cause more problems than it is worth. It is, however, another place you can add the Recharge intesive pet sets to, and get their lovely uniques. (of course, you've already got that in Hell on Earth...)

Lightning Storm - Recharge, Damage, and use it when you can. The storm doesn't move around, but it brings a very strong punch of energy damage to your arsenal.

For a more in depth view, I suggest reading Silas' guide to Storm Summoning. While aimed at Corruptors, the information is very good.

I hope this helps.

This was extremely helpful and I found his guide, thankyou very much ^_^

Snowstorm has the slow and recharge debuff. Snowstorm also has -fly and an interrupt feature that prevents self-detonating foes from exploding like embalmed abominations, circle mages; sky raider engineers setting up FFGs, rikti communication officers opening portals.

Snow Storm is really good against enemies with hard hitting, already slow recharging attacks. Such as Longbow Ballista; Snow Storm cripples them. At lower levels it cripples pretty much everything since enemies typically have only a few attacks to cycle. I've skipped it on a few Storm characters who have other methods of controlling/slowing the enemy (like my Ice/Storm corr), but never on a Mastermind.

Ive picked up snow storm and slotted it accordingly and i have to agree with the comments, its quite good for bosses and lts, not so much minions because thier mostly quick attacks. All in all i think i'll be keeping that but skipping tornado and thunderclap (ofcourse). Or if i do pick up tornado it'll be one of those (eh i dont have anything else useful to take right now anyway) y'know?

Tornado is actually quite useful. Your henchdemons won't whine about the knockback. And it allows you to either neuter single strong enemies or to do heavy damage to them, depending on if they have knockback protection or if you apply such -kb yourself.

I wouldn't suggest using tornado each and every group or spawn, but the more you use tornado and get a feel for how it mechanically works, the more you can assess situations where it will greatly impact your mastermind's success.

Here's a for instance: the corner office conference rooms sometimes have a spawn in there. Traditional thinking says, pull them out. Stormy thinking says, 'block the door with hurricane and drop a tornado on them.' When they attack you the minions will react through the door while the tornado debuffs/stuns the spawn over and over. Eventually, especially solo, you will find yourself pulling groups after you into such cubbyholes aka stormy rooms of doom.

I love using tornado on AV's, Hero's, GM all the big nasty critters the dmg it does to them is...insane.