Storm/Archery: Having problems... (New to Defenders)

To start, he's my first defender and I chose the power set combination because I always wanted to try out both archery and storm summoning; so I ventured to capitalize on the defender archetype.

Almost eighteen levels in and, well, he's not doing so well. I'm loving the main power set, storm summoning, and I love flinging arrows at bad guys, but it's taking forever to take anything above my level down. Please keep in mind that he is entirely unslotted right now as I don't start slotting until I hit about level twenty.

However, running slotless aside, I can already tell that its damage output will be very negligible in the long run. I run for the first twenty levels the way I do because if a character's viable without slotting until then, usually it's a keeper for me. I'm not having problems with dying or anything as I've hardly died at all. The damage output just seems to out and out suck and for some reason my gut's telling me that I won't see a huge improvement even if I start plugging inventions in now. I might reroll a storm summoning/electrical blast or ice blast, but I really wanted the weapon for theme reasons and because I want Rain Of Arrows!

Am I experiencing what I am simply because I haven't slotted or is archery really that bad a pairing with my main power set? I know I.O.'ing it out to hell will make it a viable build in the long run, but will it be on par with other defenders with the same main power set or am I just gimping myself here? I don't care about redraw issues by the way, only pure damage.

Sorry for sounding dumb here, but despite this account being new, I'm actually a three or almost four year veteran of the game now. I've typically played tankers, blasters, masterminds, and more blasters! I do know how defenders are played though and I know that base damage from attacks is supposed to be supported by the main power set. Archery just seems like it may be severely lacking when paired with storm summoning.

tldr:
Things are just slow becuase you haven't slotted and are expecting blaster levels of damage which isn't going to happen.

/Archery suffers from dealing lethal damage which is more resisted than other damage types...but you shouldn't be seeing those sorts of effects below lvl 18. Defenders just have lower damage modifiers than blasters, so if you're expecting your Defender to deal Blaster levels of damage you're going to be dissapointed. Granted, you get some help dealing damage with Freezing Rain (35% resistance debuff) but even so, you won't be hitting Blaster levels (especially since they get....do they still call it defiance or did it get renamed when they made it actually useful?).

Changing secondary powersets is not going to cause an appreciable difference in damage. (Sure other damage types are less resisted, but then you have a crashless nuke to make up for it). Of course slotting will make a HUGE difference. You no longer have beginners luck at 18, so all of the missing is going to make things feel like they take longer (although FR will help with that), and the more often FR is recharged the faster you will be able to kill things.

No, you aren't the big killer, but leveraging your AoEs will definitely help. Fistful of arrows and explosive arrow in tandem with freezing rain should produce respectable results. In later levels, the stun arrow will help mezz troublesome targets. I don't have a lot of experience with archery, but the biggest selling point is the crashless nuke, much like the crashless nuke of dual pistols. It's a huge AoE. Although it might not be a blaster sized nuke, it comes up frequently and definitely shortens battles.

Thanks for the feedback guys! Guess I shouldn't wait that long with the other AT's huh?

Slotting time it is!

Recharge and Endurance Redux will make a large difference. The more FR is up, the greater you will be. That's from a solo standpoint. Medium/large teams, you're more likely to get away with not slotting until level 22 (or higher). FR won't be up as much, but every other mob will go much faster.

I've found the amount of recharge in FR and LS directly proportional to your effectiveness solo. RoA is nice, as is instantly chaining it into Explosive Arrow. They are both nice sets and my boyfriend has this exact build around level 40. FR + Aim + RoA + Explosive is nice. However, compared to your blasty and MM types where damage is easy, think more of tanker type damage. You'll be a little slower, but you got tricks that'll keep them on their rear ends and debuffed til you can take them out.

Major suggestion: You'll probably want to opt out of Thunder Clap, unless you are planning on double stacking it with stunning shot to stop some bosses. Then again, you can just get Oppressive Gloom at 41 and then you just stay in melee of the boss. Opposite side, might consider double stacking OG with TC and giving up stunning. Little slower recharge, but hey, I went for recharge on my Storm/Dark defender and then ageless for even more recharge and to save my endurance consumption.

Thanks for the input Stormy. I was thinking of taking Stunning Shot and Thunder Clap, so that's not really an issue with me.

As far as ancillaries go, what is best for a defender? Should I invest in the leadership pool? The only thing I have so far is Hover and Flight. As far as the medicine pool goes, I'm not really interested in self heals. I hated using it on my blaster as I found it helped me very little in game and I couldn't stand the pausing of my character that it caused. That's what greens are for!

Are there any skippable powers too? I know Gale and 02 Boost are crap powers and from what I've read people say take 02 Boost and give it 3 to 4 slots. I think Gale is an awesome control power though! Anyone have any thoughts on this? If I take Gale, how many slots should I give it and what should go in?

Thanks for the offer, but I can play the market very well .

I'm actually level 20 now, slotted, and I can say that storm summoning already seems fricking powerful. I just got hurricane and I'm able to take on multiple yellows at once.

I'd have to agree with a poster who said that a storm defender is more of a tank mage. It certainly seems like that is how my character is going to play later on.

So, since he has steamy mist and hover, should I try to bolster this defender's defense? I was always of the opinion that a ranged AT outside of a blaster doesn't need much defense because they're weak by default.

Should I really take tough and weave?

The fighting pool is a lot of powers, but adding maneuvers would be a good idea. Steamy mist is great for fire, cold, energy resistances, too, which adds a lot to survivability especially rikti and CoT.

Thanks for the input. I think I'm going to go for a more of a middle of the road approach then. I'm only somewhat of a hard core player and I'll try to balance out recharge with defense as best I can.

On the plus side, defenders seem like they're a bit cheaper to IO out, at least less so than a tanker or scrapper... Am I wrong? I don't go for all purples mind you.

Defenders do tend to be less expensive than melee ATs to IO out, in that (de)buff sets are much less expensive than damage sets or def/res sets. Stormies do make for very tanky defenders, what with Hurricane's massive debuff and such. I'd say that the Fighting pool would be a little much, but Leadership is always nice to have. Archery doesn't have much explicit synergy with Storm, but they're both powerful sets individually, so the pairing should work fine. Freezing Rain can set up your AoE combo (RoA - Fistful - Explosive) and your other debuffs can keep you and your team upright.