I'm not in favor of it. Storm is a good secondary, but AR is a bad pairing, imo. Storm thrives on chaos and knockback, which means you'll hard-pressed to line up your cone powers (Full Auto and Flamethrower are your staples). You don't have an immobilize, so Ignite drops into uselessness, which leaves you with a rather weak single target set.
It's not without nice synergies. Thunderclap stacks mag with beanbag, so you can throw a mag 5 stun on a boss while stunning all his minions with a mag2, not without merit. You also can use buckshot, slug, hurricane and lightning storm to keep anyone interested in melee at arm's reach, which will result in a fair amount of passive mitigation for you and your team. And Freezing Rain->Flamethrower->Full Auto will tolerably vaporize most big groups.
That all said, I think Archery will work a LOT better. It also has a stun to stack with thunderclap, a much easier to use rain power, and generally faster-animating powers. You'll find that Freezing Rain->Rain of Arrows->Explosive Arrow works for groups just as well, and is much, much easier to position properly. The higher target cap and faster animation time of explosive arrow more than makes up for the lower damage when compared to flamethrower.
eh. drop freezing, camera spin full auto. good times
My AR/Storm hit 50 yesterday. I am satisfied with the character overall, but would say that while AR is great, Storm is just not the best secondary.
There is some good synergy, actually; AR's long animation rootings and short-range cones are much safer with Hurricane, and Storm offers plenty of ways to compress foes to get them into your cones in the first place. AR's commonly-resisted lethal damage pairs well with a strong -res power like Freezing Rain. Ignite remains awesome on teams or against EBs/AVs and such, and is still a useful defensive power.
Both sets are AoE heavy, meaning you'll perform well on large teams fighting enemies that don't melt immediately, giving you time to actually drop your debuffs and cones. On fast-moving teams, your inability to fire off more than two or three powers in five seconds is a liability. Solo, you have exactly two single-target power to chain, possibly three if you like snipe a lot.
Endurance management is a continuous challenge if you're a toggle fan. You'll be running Steamy Mist all the time, along with the Leadership toggles if you roll that way, and possibly Snow Storm and Hurricane. Firing off a full chain of FR+FA+Flamethrower+Buckshot+M30 eats up about 78 End unslotted. With my current slotting, FR+FA+Flamethrower can be fired off about every 28 seconds for 40 END alone. Feel like tossing off Lightning Storm or Tornado? There goes another 30 or so END. Getting Scirocco's Power Sink really helped my build, even though everything has a -END cost in it.
In terms of raw offensive power, it isn't as potent as Fire/Dark, but it's still pretty rude. Scourging Snipes hit for 400-600 damage depending on buffs/debuffs, and FA is roughly equivalent. The long range of Sniper Rifle and Full Auto are surprisingly useful, despite the oddities of long cones. Sticking a Range enhancement in Flamethrower is a good idea, possibly Buckshot as well.
For slotting, I went heavy offense once Steamy Mist and Freezing Rain were good to go. Many of the Storm powers require only a couple slots, if that, unless you're looking for cheap IO sets.
So, is it fun? Tons, especially on a big team against a challenge. Is it the best build ever? Nope.
If you're on Virtue much, send me a PM and I'll take you on a mission and show you how the tricycle handles.
AR/Storm can be incredibly fun, but requires a lot of work to leverage the cones. With that said, I think /Storm is a very strong secondary in my opinion, given that you have access to freezing rain a lot sooner than what a /Cold corruptor can access with Sleet. I can honestly say that /Storm covers up many of the weakness of AR extremely well. Only thing missing with /Storm is an immobilize so you can leverage ignite.
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That's kind of what I was figuring by all the quietness around Assault Rifle. And thanks, I'll look you up next time I'm on Virtue!
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Originally Posted by Emgro
So, is it fun? Tons, especially on a big team against a challenge. Is it the best build ever? Nope.
If you're on Virtue much, send me a PM and I'll take you on a mission and show you how the tricycle handles. |
AR works best with something that can do everything from range. Storm fits that bill nicely. You can use Freezing Rain then while the enemies are flopping around you'll have plenty of time to stand there with all of your long *** DoTs. Just be careful not to knock things out of your own rain.
I'm looking at playing around with an Assault Rifle character and know very little about the set other than it seems AoE-focused.
Does anyone have some thoughts on how it might pair with the Storm secondary? It seems like the only thing people pair it with is either /dark or /traps (if you can find people with an Assault Rifle in the first place!)