Play Misty for Me

Ran a Synapse recently on level 50 Incarnate Invulnerability Tanker with a lot of set bonuses.

Of course, on a Synapse, he's a level-20-with-2-additional powers non-Incarnate Inv Tanker with almost no set bonuses and some reduced enhancement due to exemplaring.

My defense numbers were somewhat down, and the missions are almost entirely against Clockwork, using tons of energy and psi damage, not a strong point for this Tanker powerset.

Fortunately, I had recently respecced the character into Inherent Fitness, and taken advantage of the opportunity to move to much earlier in the build some powers I had previously put off until the end. So I had Resist Elements and Resist Energies even for Synapse, and Res En gave me ~30% resistance to energy damage....

And we had a Storm Defender on the team! When I saw my energy resistance was sitting at 64%, I thought, how on earth...? But I'd forgotten that Steamy Mist boosts fire, cold and energy resists, as well as adding a nice little bit of defense.

Invulnerability is no slouch -- I've tanked Synapse before. But that required some careful aggro and inspiration management, and I spent a certain amount of time resting. This time, Steamy Mist was enormously helpful in trivializing what would have been serious threats. Not game-winning by itself, but just the right sort of supplement to my passives. (Admittedly, the partial endurance protection now provided by the passive helped too).

Also, the team stealth SM provides helped us limit the amount of surplus aggro we drew from the notoriously long-range clockwork.

And then the Defender ALSO had Freezing Rain. I'd lost access to several key powers, notably the wide-area knockdown of Footstomp; FR is, of course, much better.

Later, I ran a Sister Psyche with another Storm Def; again, a fair amount of energy damage from the Freaks, and the exemplaring wasn't much better.

I've played Storm before, so this wasn't a revelation to me, but I'd kind of forgotten how good Steamy Mist could be, and the synergy with Inv was very nice for these particular TFs. I know Stormies don't always get shout-outs for their contributions to teams...this one's for you guys and gals!

Those TFs are also when O2 Boost shines for it's End Drain Resistance.

Freezing Rain = win.

I love everything a stormie can bring. How the player plays it is another matter. Definitely under-rated.

Another aspect to O2 some squishies forget is the stun resistance. It's not a big deal for melees with status protection, but on defenders, controllers, non-dommed dominators, blasters, and corruptors it can save toggles from dropping.

Steamy Mist: lol energy
Hurricane: lol tohit
O2 Boost: lol teslas
Snow Storm: lol oscillators
Thunder Clap: lol minions
Gale: lol princes
Freezing Rain: lol everything

The big bads in that TF are lucky it's too low to bust the Tornadoes out.

Gotta agree with this. My level 21 Warshade was teamed with a Stormie recently and it was amazing. I alternated between being a Dwarf with a number of capped resistances and a Mired-up Nova who was two shotting spawns thanks to Miring myself and then firing into Freezing Rain. Talk about a power multiplier.

I think Freezing Rain has got to be up there as one of my favourite powers in the entire game.

My first character was an Illusion/Stormie and I'll never forget what someone said to them some time in the mid-30s about 4 years ago.

"Wow!! Storm is a real box of tricks!!"

Storm in a small room is one of the funniest things in the entire game IMO.