Hows it work? I mean from a technical view...
You can't soft cap your pets, or stack their res up very high... What's the angle you play?
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How does what work? The Mercs/Traps build or the /Storm build?|
Originally Posted by Lewisite
Hows it work? I mean from a technical view...
You can't soft cap your pets, or stack their res up very high... What's the angle you play? |
As for the OP: try Necro/Storm and let me know how that works for ya - I'm curious. I've got a Mercs/Storm: you'll probably get bored w/ that combo if you've already played Mercs/Traps, since the strategy is exactly the same (lay down your goodies, watch your pets slay everything, repeat)- the only difference is you're replacing a straight heal with an AoE +regen on the survivability front.
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Originally Posted by Lewisite
Hows it work? I mean from a technical view...
You can't soft cap your pets, or stack their res up very high... What's the angle you play? |
Re-read post. I never said it was the best, I said it was decent.
Actually, I'm debating heavily on Demons or Necro. Truth be told I never got to play Demons before my long absence. Then again, I love Necro. How well do procs work in Tornado?
I greatly enjoyed my bots/storm from start to finish.
It wasn't the first stormy I'd played by a long shot, but I actually found that mm /storm was perhaps the most satisfying storm experience I've had.
The reason it was so good is that you can focus nearly 100% of your efforts on storming things up rather than splitting the time like a controller/defender/corr has to with their other duties.
This allowed me to be really aggressive with hurricane and because I never needed to attack my ninja run would never suppress. Ninja run + hurricane is great fun.
Necro would be nice in that you get a heal. However, I'm not sure how well melee pets work when you are shoving everything around. I personally liked the stand and blast nature of the bots while I sweep everything around.
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I love my Demon/Storm, one of my favorite characters. I like to proc the nado and it works well, but regular damage is also a valid choice. Tornado can also be used for the pet buff procs (as can Hell on Earth from demons), which is handy.
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Originally Posted by Bookkeeper_Jay
Actually, I'm debating heavily on Demons or Necro. Truth be told I never got to play Demons before my long absence. Then again, I love Necro. How well do procs work in Tornado?
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Why Blasters? Empathy Sucks.
So, you want to be Mental?
What the hell? Let's buff defenders.
Tactics are for those who do not have a big enough hammer. Wisdom is knowing how big your hammer is.
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Originally Posted by StratoNexus
I love my Demon/Storm, one of my favorite characters. I like to proc the nado and it works well, but regular damage is also a valid choice. Tornado can also be used for the pet buff procs (as can Hell on Earth from demons), which is handy.
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From a math standpoint, the 20% chance + accuracy and defense debuffs + the amount of times Tornado hits = a lot of proc damage. I was thinking of slotting Tornado with a Lady Grey's Chance for Negative and an Achilles Heel, plus a couple Analyze Weakness IOs. Well, that and I'm thinking of putting procs in Freezing Rain as well.
Necro/Storm does work. As much kb as there is, the mastermind's goal is to maximize damage and survival. Good stormies don't blow things out of the zombie's trough, the kill zone, and good stormies don't blow things out of freezing rain either. Hurricane is a scalpel, a fine tool, not a sledgehammer.
Triumphant Defenders Forever
Psylenz FF/Psi, ArticQuark Storm/Rad, Symon BarSisyphus Bots/psn, Max VanSydow Thugs/Dk, Cyclone Symon Bots/stm, Blue Loki Ice/Cd, Widow 46526
HelinCarnate:OMG it is so terrible. I have the option to take 3 more powers but no additional slots. Boo F'ing hoo.
Ah, you Just Like It(tm).
I understand that.
/storm isn't bad in general really, I think its strongly underrated. I have a thugs/storm at fifty who did pretty well considering I didn't spec him very well. However, the real problem with storm is that a lot of your best attacks tend to annoy team members, especially brutes and controller-types 
They sing a different tune when you shoo off a group of guys about to kill them though - but until then prepare to hear complaints about your knock back
Tornado is a bad place for procs for 3 reasons.
t
1) Tornado does its damage via an aura it has, so the proc rate is once every 10 seconds, not once per damage hit or tohit check
2) Tornado has a pretty small AOE on that aura
3) Tornado does knockback, so unless you can immob & -kb things in place the chances something is going to be within that small AOE when the 10 second mark comes around is pretty small.
A standard damage proc in any power which uses an aura for it's effect gives you a measly 1.4 DPS at level 50 (20% chance of 70 damage every 10 seconds).
Good places for procs are pets or powers which work by using a pseudopet which casts a power themselves every few seconds (like Lightning Storm, the Lich or Grave Knights). Or powers with a decent AOE, like Freezing Rain.
On a Necro/storm I'd stick a Chance for -resist into Knights and Freezing Rain and probably the Accurate -ToHit damage proc into the Lich.
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I was specifically referring to how pets seem hesitant to attack things that are being rag-dolled (or at least with melee powers). Plus there is surely some attack efficiency lost when the pet has to attack>move>attack with someone even just nudging targets around with cane.|
Originally Posted by Psylenz
Necro/Storm does work. As much kb as there is, the mastermind's goal is to maximize damage and survival. Good stormies don't blow things out of the zombie's trough, the kill zone, and good stormies don't blow things out of freezing rain either. Hurricane is a scalpel, a fine tool, not a sledgehammer.
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My personal hesitation to go ds/storm is because the personal attacks are so tempting both aesthetically and for the debuff, which then limits the amount of fun you can have essentially being a pure stormer.
Final push for bots/storm is that at some point the plasma blast got fixed for assault bot and is now properly applying -regen. Typically you will have -500 to -1000% regen applied (so equivalent to lingering rad up to poison gas trap), which makes hard targets much more manageable.
I only mention that because MM's are so powerful and storm MM's are no exception that normal x8 content is pretty mundane, so you may get the temptation to go after bigger targets.
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Honestly its a trap build I just don't see it any different then a robot traps build. Assuming he went that route with his build. Basic Tankermind setup, so should be able to handle anything.
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Originally Posted by Lewisite
Hows it work? I mean from a technical view...
You can't soft cap your pets, or stack their res up very high... What's the angle you play? |
1. Why Soft Cap is Important : http://dechskaison.blogspot.com/2011...important.html
2. Limits: http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Limits
3. Attack Mechanics: http://wiki.cohtitan.com/wiki/Attack_Mechanics
4. Rule of Five: http://wiki.cohtitan.com/wiki/Rule_o...e_Law_of_Fives
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Originally Posted by Carnifax_NA
Tornado is a bad place for procs for 3 reasons.
t 1) Tornado does its damage via an aura it has, so the proc rate is once every 10 seconds, not once per damage hit or tohit check 2) Tornado has a pretty small AOE on that aura 3) Tornado does knockback, so unless you can immob & -kb things in place the chances something is going to be within that small AOE when the 10 second mark comes around is pretty small. A standard damage proc in any power which uses an aura for it's effect gives you a measly 1.4 DPS at level 50 (20% chance of 70 damage every 10 seconds). Good places for procs are pets or powers which work by using a pseudopet which casts a power themselves every few seconds (like Lightning Storm, the Lich or Grave Knights). Or powers with a decent AOE, like Freezing Rain. On a Necro/storm I'd stick a Chance for -resist into Knights and Freezing Rain and probably the Accurate -ToHit damage proc into the Lich. |
I wasn't technically talking about using tornado extensively for damage on mobs. I was thinking more along the lines of an AV or Giant Monster.
Office map, near group, group at door of small office, group around corner for added flavor, pets on passive stay. Take your hurricane, and after blowing near group to corner run into combined 2 groups to debuff/aggro. Visit 3rd group with hurricane. Run INTO small office, stand at edge of door, break line of sight. Mobs pile in and are pushed away from mastermind. Hit defensive mode. Pets follow spawns into room. Drop Mr. Twisty. Cast lightning storm. Block door. Keel dem alll!!
Triumphant Defenders Forever
Psylenz FF/Psi, ArticQuark Storm/Rad, Symon BarSisyphus Bots/psn, Max VanSydow Thugs/Dk, Cyclone Symon Bots/stm, Blue Loki Ice/Cd, Widow 46526
HelinCarnate:OMG it is so terrible. I have the option to take 3 more powers but no additional slots. Boo F'ing hoo.
Just want to say how refreshing the OP was. For MMs mine is thugs/traps but for my main, nothing even comes close to my fire/fire scrapper. It just 'clicked' and I should check sometime how many hours I have wasted playing that character.
In all 7+ years, I have never played any other character more, made on the first day that Issue 12 hit, and the first character I ever decided to purple out and spend billions on.
That character is a problem on the BAF, because whatever team I am on massively overtakes the other when it comes to the final phase, so much so that I have been put on the adds team intentionally from leaders that saw my character's performance on previous days, and I am not saying that to brag - it just makes me feel good to know that all my playing has paid off.
To the OP I say 'congrats' because there is nothing else like finding that particular character that makes you ignore your alts.
My new Youtube Channel with CoH info
You might know me as FlintEastwood now on Freedom
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Max out damage and recharge first, each proc will only add 1.4 dps on average against an av or gm which is piddly really.
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Originally Posted by Bookkeeper_Jay
I wasn't technically talking about using tornado extensively for damage on mobs. I was thinking more along the lines of an AV or Giant Monster.
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Oh well, because Bots and Thugs can softcap their pet defenses with traps. Mercs's can't. With Mercs I love Dark personally. But anyway, it really helps when your pets can be expected to survive a little while longer when fighting big groups because provoke only gets you so far. That said, I like Mercs better than Robots because I don't find Robots damage all that impressive.... Mercs with nice procs can really tear things up in ways that I don't honestly see the "more powerful" Robots and Thugs doing.|
Originally Posted by plainguy
Honestly its a trap build I just don't see it any different then a robot traps build. Assuming he went that route with his build. Basic Tankermind setup, so should be able to handle anything.
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What makes Mercs awesome really is that they proc so well, just about every single attack on the Soldiers and Commando can proc, most of the Specops attacks can... and they attack a lot, especially compared to melee sets. I find their damage to be smoother between the tiers because of that. Robots and Traps both seem to be all about the T3 Pet, they are very top-heavy sets.
Only problem with Bots/Traps is everything is so easy. I don't even bother to lay down my trip mines and acid mortars etc. /Dark is a little more fun to play, I find, because you actually do things ;P It wrecks regular content evilly, but tends to be weaker when fighting AV's and Heros, or lots of the incarnate guys where they resist debuffs 87% or so.
All of that said, my dream set would be like... Assault Bot, Grave Knights and Soldiers, probably with /Dark. Figure out the theme there
I had fun with my Necro/storm for a while. Hurricane + taunt = fun for all.
I didn't think it was possible...I mean, I didn't. I've come to the conclusion that I simply cannot play anything other than my Mercs/Traps. I just can't! I'm not the best at things, but I'm not the worst either. It feels dead center; decent and delicious. The concept, the build, the set-ups--they all work to make him probably my favorite CoH character of all time. I'm gonna try starting up a /Storm Mastermind (either Necro, Demon, or Mercs) but I think I might just get stuck back with my Mercs/Traps.