Storm Summoning Guide excerpt for feedback(Tornado)
Tornado (Basic Version):
Tornado is a pseudopet (meaning that it can't be targeted, killed, or controlled by you) that lasts 30 seconds chasing enemies dealing damage, knocking them back, stunning them, and debuffing defense. Tornado tends to switch rapidly from target to target blowing around everything in its path, and also causes fear which causes things to run.
Should I take this power? 4/5
Tornado is one of Storm Summoning's more situational powers. Because it causes knockback it can be rather chaos inducing and may not always be appreciated on teams. Tornado can be a little like having a Storm Defender following you with Gale on auto (which we learned back in the Gale section was not a good idea.) Thus this is not a power that I would use in every group on every spawn. However, the knockback and stun can work well as a distraction and makes for a good panic button if you or your team has over aggro'd. Tornado also shines against single hard targets (In particular against Arch villains since they aren't susceptible to its knockback) since Tornado can then deal all of its substantial damage against a single target. Also note that Tornado is auto-hit, so it doesn't matter how much defense an enemy has, Tornado will always connect. This makes it excellent for finishing off Paragon Protectors as well.
How should I slot it? (basic version)
The slotting for Tornado depends a lot on how you use it. If you find you only use it for AV fights and bosses, then my recommendation is to focus on recharge and damage to make it really pack a punch. If your recharge is high enough you can have multiple tornados out at once, so more recharge simply means more damage. See the advanced section for information on just how much recharge is required.
If you find that you tend to use Tornado as a control power with some frequency, it may be tempting to stick some stun duration in there, but note that the stun is only 2 seconds in length, so the stun duration won't buy you much. An extra second may be worthwhile for you though. If you find that you use Tornado regularly and not just on special occasions, then you will almost certainly want to invest a slot in endurance reduction since Tornado is one of your more expensive powers.
Although it may be tempting to slot Tornado for defense debuff, you already have such a massive defense debuff in Freezing Rain that it is usually more beneficial to enhance the other aspects of Tornado. As always, when slotting remember not to slot more than three single origin enhancements worth of any one attribute due to enhancement diversification.
Tornado (Advanced Version):
What are Tornado's Stats? (For Defenders, although they are the same for everyone with Tornado):
Available Level: 26
Activation Time: 1.17s
Recharge Time: 1m
Endurance Cost: 20.80
Accuracy: 1.00x (You will never fail to summon Tornado, and the tornado itself is autohit)
Power Type: Click
Target Type: Location
Power Range: 60.00 ft.(This is the range at which you can summon Tornado)
Effect Area: Location
Summoned Tornado for 30 seconds@lvl 50(only damage and knockup/back magnitude change with level):
Accuracy:1.30X (Again this is a misnomer, Tornado is autohit)Umm...right...so what's it do?
Power Type:Auto (This power will go off every .5 seconds)
Target Type:Self Effect Area:AoE -- 7.00 ft. radius (5 targets max)
Attack Types:AoE
effects:
6.23 magnitude knockup on targetAccuracy:1.40X(again, a bogus number...it's autohit)
12.46 magnitude knockback on target
6.67 smashing damage on target after 1.00s delay (400 damage total).
2.00 magnitude stun on target after 2.50s delay for 2 seconds
-15.00% defense on target for 8 seconds
Power Type:Auto
Target Type:Self Effect Area: AoE -- 20.00 ft. radius (16 targets max)
effects:
10.00 magnitude fear on target Ignores buffs and enhancements unresistable
When you use Tornado it will summon a windy vortex to follow you around for 30 seconds. Tornado cannot be targeted, and thus cannot be buffed or attacked (thus why it's called a pseudo pet). This vortex will chase after enemies and every half a second its ability will trigger hitting all (up to 5) enemies within 7 feet of it and knocking them back and up, applying a 15% defense debuff, and dealing a small amount of damage. Note that these effects do not stack with themselves so subsequent attacks of the tornado will refresh the time on the defense debuff, but will still only be magnitude 15% defense debuff. However, the debuff from multiple tornados can stack.
The stun is a little bit a funny in Tornado. note that the stun is applied after a 2.5 second delay. Well each attack of tornado will refresh the timer on that 2.5 seconds. Therefore, enemies do not get stunned until Tornado has stopped attacking them for 2.5 seconds, at which point they will be stunned for 2 seconds. If tornado expires while attacking a target, that target will never get stunned. The purpose of the stun appears to be primarily so that enemies are unable to attack you in the time it takes for tornado to chase them down and continue to knock them around.
If you can get Tornado to stay on a single target (perhaps because there is only one target left), then you can actually deal a full 400 damage (unenhanced) to that target over the 30 second Tornado is out. When there are multiple targets alive, Tornado can be more like a scrapper with attention deficit disorder who gets a couple attacks on an enemy and then starts chasing after another one.
What does 2 magnitude disorient and 6.23/12.46 knockback/up mean?
A magnitude 2 disorient means that Tornado will stun most minions. Lieutenants typically require a magnitude 3 stun and bosses a magnitude 4 stun. For information on status effect magnitude see the appendix(associated with Freezing Rain).
Awesome I didn't know Tornado caused Fear! Why doesn't it accept Fear enhancements?
Don't get your hopes up. What is often called fear in the game, and what fear enhancements enhance, is actually called terrorize. Terrorize is the shaking state in which enemies can only return fire if they are attacked. Originally this did not exist in the game and all abilities that now cause terrorize, caused fear, which made enemies run away. However, players weren't particularly fond of that mechanic so many powers that had Fear as their main effect had it changed to terrorize. However, some powers (Tornado, and Lightning Storm in particular) retained the original fear. This means that they tend to make enemies run away. Of course the AI mechanics in this game are complicated and the desire to run away will often be overpowered by the desire to attack, but this does mean that tornado tends to scatter enemies more than just its knockback.
Strategy:
What do you mean when you say, "Use Tornado as a panic button?"
Tornado tends to cause a lot of chaos as it sends enemies flying everywhere, stunning them, and causing them to flee. This means that on a well oiled team, Tornado may slow the team down by spreading the enemies out more making it hard for your teammates to hit a large group with their area of effect powers. Even if you are solo, Tornado will throw enemies out of Freezing Rain and make it harder for [LINK to come]Lightning Storm to hit multiple enemies. Therefore you probably don't want to use Tornado in every fight.
However, enemies that are flying through the air, stunned, or running, won't be attacking you or your team. Thus, Tornado makes it excellent power if you "panic" because your team is being overwhelmed and you need to buy them some time, or there's an ambush that comes out of nowhere that needs to be stopped while you finish off the last three groups the over eager (pick your favorite archetype) aggro'd.
How can I control my Tornado better?
Although Tornado is uncontrollable it will nominally follow you around and has a "leash" of around 150 feet. This means that if you need to get Tornado to stop attacking something (perhaps because you accidentally summoned it, and now it's causing too much chaos) you can move 150 feet away from a target and after a second, tornado will stop attacking and come spin by you. Note that Tornado's aggro radius (the distance at which it will start attacking things) is much smaller, at only about 40 feet.
Why does Tornado have such a bad reputation? (a mini history lesson)
I actually don't think the bad reputation is as prevalent anymore, but for those of with long memories: back when the game came out, Tornado had no "leash". Enemies would have fear applied to them and start running, and Tornado would start chasing after enemies, plowing through groups and groups of enemies towards the back of the map. Since the enemies can't attack Tornado their aggro was automatically transferred to you, and because there was no aggro cap, the next thing you know, an entire map full of enemies is charging at you, thanks to that little funnel cloud.
Currently in the game Tornado mostly gets a bad rap from Storm Defenders that don't think before they use it. Tornado is not a good opening move as it scatters enemies that are already clumped to make the most of AoE attacks. For melee toons, it can be like having a Storm Defender following them around with Gale on auto (reminder: that's a bad idea if you like your teammates).
I love Tornado, but I hate the knockback, is there anything I can do?
Well, sort of. There are a number of powers in the game which cause -KB, meaning that enemies under this are much harder to be knocked back (in general it becomes virtually impossible). Unfortunately of those open to a Storm Defender there are:
Dual Pistols: Suppressive Fire (single target hold if incendiary or toxic ammo are loaded)So any Storm Defender can take Electric Mastery and get Electric Fence. Unfortunately these are all single target powers, so they don't help making tornado less chaotic in a big fight, but they may be able to keep a single target from running and being thrown all over. Unfortunately, since AVs have high hold protection, only Electric Fence can be used to stop the archvillain from running, allowing tornado to deal its full damage (Although on a team this isn't usually a problem, due to aggro mechanics and other immobilizes on the team). An archvillain has magnitude 3 protection to all mezzes when their purple triangles are down (meaning 2 applications of Electric Fence are required) and an additional magnitude 50 protection to everything except immobilize and sleep when their purple triangles are up. If you don't know what I mean when I say, "Purple Triangles", see the appendix.
Ice Blast: Freeze Ray, Bitter Freeze Ray (single target holds)
Electric Mastery: Electric Fence (single target immobilize)
The majority of the powers that suppress knockback are Controller (and dominator) immobilizes. In particular:
Earth Control: Stone Prison, Fossilize and Stone Cages (single target and AoE immobilizes, and single target hold)This means that if you are playing on a team with a controller (or happen to be a controller) that spams one of these powers, then tornado can be used as a straight damage power that won't cause chaos because enemies won't be thrown all over the place and can't run. Note however, that Tornado still likes to jump between targets fairly rapidly, so the damage it deals will be reduced due to its travel time between targets.
Electric Control: Electric Fence, but NOT Chain Fences (only single target immobilize)
Fire Control: Ring of Fire, Fire Cages (single target and AoE immobilizes)
Gravity Control: Gravity Distortion, Gravity Distortion Field (single target and AoE holds, NOT the immobilizes)
Ice Control: Chilblain, Block of Ice, Frost Bite, Glacier (single target and AoE immobilize and holds)
Plant Control: Entangle, Roots (single target and AoE immobilizes)
Other powers include:
Trick Arrow: Entangling Arrow (single target immobilize)
How can I use Tornado to neutralize bosses?
This is probably my favorite trick in the Storm Defender's bag. It's theHurricane, Tornado pseudo-hold. You can pin an enemy in a corner using Hurricane (already very safe due to Hurricane's to-hit debuff) and then summon a tornado underneath the enemy. If the boss is the only enemy around, Tornado will throw the boss up in the air, but hurricane will make sure that the boss only flies into the corner, which means that the boss is still over Tornado and thus gets knocked up again. The boss will be continuously be knocked up and back, making it almost impossible for him to get a shot off (if by some stroke of luck he does, his accuracy is already floored). This technique also has the advantage of keeping the boss in one place so that Tornado can deal almost all of its 400 damage to the enemy.
I hear people say Tornado is great for Archvillain fights, why?
In Archvillain fights there is usually only one target for tornado to focus on, so it will not be distracted by other targets. Additionally archvillains have knockback protection, meaning that tornado can't fling them somewhere and then have to chase them. This means that you get the full damage potential of Tornado on the archvillain. That's 400 damage unenhanced over its duration, or 13.37 damage per second unenhanced. At the enhancement diversification cap that's 26 damage per second from a single tornado (if the enemy has no resistance to smashing damage). For comparison, a level 50 archvillain has a regeneration rate of 95 hp/sec, so tornado is effectively a 27% regeneration debuff. This additional damage will be essential if you're going to solo an archvillain.
On another note, yes archvillains have a tendency to run from tornado but on a team this should be completely offset by the aggro drawn by the tank or other folks attacking the archvillain, and can be prevented by an immobilize as well (archvillains only have magnitude 6 immobilize protection) so you in general you should not be concerned about an archvillain running on account of Tornado.
Those damage numbers are SWEET!! so if I just pop a bunch of reds, Tornado should be INCREDIBLE?
Well, no. Unfortunately tornado does not inherit buffs from you. This means that tornado does no additional damage when you pop reds, when you have just used aim, power build up, or are under the effect of Fulcrum Shift. Just be happy that Tornado can do what it does.
Why is Tornado great on Paragon Protectors, and other hard to hit targets?
Tornado is auto-hit. This means that it doesn't have to make a hit check to find out if it affects an enemy. Thus it doesn't matter how much defense an enemy has, Tornado will do damage. On enemies like paragon protectors, often they just have a sliver of health left and tornados damage alone is sufficient to kill them. Also note that when tornado deals damage, it applies a debuff defense, making it easier for everyone else to hit. Note that oftentimes this defense debuff will have a limited impact due to debuff debuff resistance in some of the god mode powers enemies use, or the power providing a significant defense buffer (much more defense than is truly necessary).
Tornado knocked an enemy into a cave wall, and now it's stuck!!! What should I do?
The code for dealing with this situation is much better than it used to be, and if you step away from the enemy it is likely to pop out of the wall. If not, because tornado has that 7 foot area of effect, it can often attack things stuck in the wall that you can't, so just summon a second Tornado to get it out of the wall. If all else fails you can always submit a petition and wait for a GM to come help you, but I have never had to resort to this. Some combination of Hurricane, Tornado, and Freezing Rain and waiting 10 seconds, manages to get the enemy out of the wall.
How should I slot it? (Advanced Version):
Why Can't I slot Accuracy in Tornado?
As mentioned up in the strategy section, Tornado is auto hit. So adding additional accuracy would not affect how often it hits (always). It is possible to slot IOs in Tornado that have an accuracy component, but be aware that those aspects of the IOs simply do nothing. So an Accuracy/Stun IO in Tornado is really just half (more like 65%) of a stun IO.
Can I stun Lieutenants by slotting stun?
No. Slotting for Stun enhances the duration of the stun, but not it's magnitude. With the exception of dominator's domination, and the Controller's chance to overpower, there are no powers in the game that increase the magnitude of a status effect. People sometimes claim that power boost or power build up can have this effect; Those people are wrong, ignore them.
Isn't there an invention origin enhancement that provides -knockback to reduce Tornado's knockback?
No, there isn't. Enhancements that provide knockback protection say, " reduces knockback effects by -4" but this reduces the effect of knockbacks applied to you making you harder to knockback, not the knockback of your powers. To understand what this means, see the appendix (from Freezing Rain).
How many Tornados can I have out at once?
For some reason this is another one that seems to get people confused. I once had to prove to forum users that it was possible to have multiple tornados out by posting a screenshot. Anyone who tells you it isn't possible just hasn't had enough recharge or wasn't paying attention.
The below recharge numbers are the total recharge (from enhancements, buffs like hasten, and IO set bonuses required.) For the purposes of keeping things simple I have ignored Arcanatime, if you don't know what that is, dont' worry, it's irrelevant. If you are curious then you can learn more about it here.
108% recharge; Tornado will recharge in 28.83 seconds: at this level you can have 1 tornado out all the time, anything higher and you will have some overlap with 2 tornados.
334% recharge; Tornado will recharge in 13.83 seconds: at this level you can have 2 tornadoes out all the time, anything higher and you will have some overlap with 3 tornadoes. Note, however that this is not a level of recharge you are likely to achieve on your own without outside buffs. It is not possible to have 3 tornadoes out all the time, as the recharge cap is 400%.
How do Procs work in Tornado?
Procs in Tornado work the same way they do inFreezing Rain. That is that every 10 seconds the proc will have a chance to fire on all enemies in tornadoes radius (that's 7 meters and up to 5 enemies). If Tornado isn't near any enemies at the 10 second mark, then the proc will do nothing. Because Tornado is auto-hit, the procs will always have a chance to fire on an enemy if it is in range. Although Tornado lasts 30 seconds, there are only 3 opportunities for the proc to fire. The proc will fire once when Tornado is cast, once at the 10 second mark, and once at the 20 second mark, but will expire before the 30 second tic would have a chance to fire.
Cool, should I slot an Achilles' Heel?
I have mixed feelings on this one. The Achilles' Heel proc has a 20% chance provide a 20% resistance debuff for 10 seconds. The Achilles' heel proc will have the same three chances to fire as every other proc. However, note that this proc will not stack with itself. So multiple tornados cannot produce a 40% damage debuff and a proc in Freezing Rain and Tornado will not combine to be 40% either. Also, note that if Tornado is not in contact with the a target at the 10 second mark (because it just knocked it back, or the target is fleeing), then the proc will not fire. You don't get to make up the chance at a later time. Because of this, I generally choose not to slot the proc in Tornado, but if you have an immobilize, and fight a lot of archvillains, this can be a good choice. As we saw in Freezing Rain for this to be better than a damage proc, you need to be able to deal 360 damage in 10 seconds, which against a single hard target is easily doable.
What about damage procs or Soulbound Allegiance: Chance for Build up?
In general no to both. Both procs will increase Tornado's damage, but not enough to make it worthwhile. Soulbound Allegiance provides a 16.6% chance for an 80% damage boost for 5 seconds. That means on average you will get an additonal 26 damage from Tornado (0.166*3*6.67*10*0.8) or a 6.25% damage increase. Of course the Soulbound proc will also have a chance to proc on you when you summon Tornado, but Tornado is on a long enough recharge timer this probably isn't particularly significant for your build.
In terms of the damage procs, at level 50 the damage procs have a 20% to deal ~72 damage on each proc tic, meaning that it will deal an additional (72*3*.2) = 43.2 damage or an 11% damage increase. (for proc damage at other levels see here) The damage procs that can be slotted in Tornado are:
Explosive Strike: Chance for Smashing DamageYou can see that until you're at the enhancement diversification damage cap, it is generally more beneficial to slot Tornado for damage than it is to fill it with procs. Especially since the numbers provided assume constant contact with an enemy and if the Tornado is between enemies for one of the proc firings, then these numbers go WAY down.
Lady Grey: Chance for Negative Energy Damage
Shield Breaker: Chance for Lethal Damage
How about pet resistance and defense auras?
On a defender unless you took a villain patron pool and thus have a pet, or have lore pets, these IOs are wasted as you have nothing that will benefit from this. Storm Summonings two pseudopets, Tornado and Lightning Storm, are untargetable and thus do not need defense or resistance.
On another AT that has pets, these might be a worthwhile choice to improve the survivability of your minions. The IOs all provide you with an "aura" that will grant a defense or resistance bonus to your pets (not other players or other people's pets) when they are within 40 feet of you:
Edict of the Master: 5% defense bonusHow about Razzle Dazzle: Chance for Immobilize; Stupefy: Chance for Knockback; Absolute Amazement: Chance for ToHit Debuff; Force Feedback: Chance for +Recharge; Analyze Weakness: Chance for +ToHit?
Call to arms: 5% defense bonus
Sovereign Right: 10% resistance bonus
Expedient Reinforcement: 10% resistance bonus
Commanding Presence: 10% resistance to taunt and placate (unless you PvP, this is next to useless. The only enemy I am aware of that can placate is the arachnos bane spider, and 10% isn't worthwhile resistance anyway).
Please don't. The procs don't fire often enough to make any of these effects beneficial (and some are broken). Although enemies may be immobilized, KB isn't suppressed, so they are still knocked all over the place. Tornado already does knockback and knockup so a chance for even more is pointless. The to hit debuff is currently broken in PvE and won't fire, and even if it did, you already have Hurricane, which will have floored everything's to hit anyway. If Hurricane doesn't floor its to hit, then the enemies resistance is high enough that the proc wouldn't make a difference. The force feedback proc will not affect Tornado, and will only have a chance to fire on you when you cast the power. This is not often enough to make it worth slotting in my opinion. The +to-hit will only have a chance to effect you when you summon Tornado, but Freezing Rain and Tornado should already have solved most of your to-hit issues anyway.
What IO sets should I slot in Tornado?
One of the most popular options is to slot 4 expedient reinforcements for the 6.25% recharge bonus, or the full 6 to also get the 3.13% ranged defense bonus. If going for a high defense build, Blood Mandates can also be appealing for the 3.75% AoE and Ranged damage bonuses. However, Blood Mandates provide no recharge for Tornado, so in general I would not recommend going that route.
There are lots of great ways to Frankenslot (pick and choose from IO sets without worrying about set bonuses) Tornado to maximize Damage/Recharge/Endurance, and still get some stun or defense debuff out of it. If there isn't a bonus you are looking for, Tornado can be an excellent place for Hamidon Enhancements. For example, Peroxisome for damage/mez, or Enzymes for defense debuff/endurance, so that you can slot the less significant aspects of the power, without having to significantly take away from an important aspect.
Draggynn on Virtue: lvl 50 Storm/Psi, 1389 badges
Draggynn's Guide to Storm Summoning(Gale-Tornado, updated 6/25/2011)
Avatar by Wassy full reference here
Appendix: Tornado
The majority of the appendix questions have already been answered with respect to other powers, and the link should take you to the appropriate section where that aspect is explained in greater detail.
What do you mean when you say an Archvillain's "Purple Triangles"?
Archvillains have a special power, often called PToD (purple triangles of doom) that gives them additional protection (50 points) to hold, knockback, confuse, repel, disorient, and fear (really terrorize) but not sleep or immobilize. The triangles go through a period of pointing upwards (thought to be 50 seconds) when this additonal protection is in effect, followed by a down period (thought to be 25 seconds) during which when they lose this protection, and have standard, magnitude 3, boss level protection. You can see a picture of the purple triangles, here.
Draggynn on Virtue: lvl 50 Storm/Psi, 1389 badges
Draggynn's Guide to Storm Summoning(Gale-Tornado, updated 6/25/2011)
Avatar by Wassy full reference here
I know you don't go through all the tactics for the powers. I am fine with that. I would like to share how I use tornado more frequently that some others might. In office maps, sewers, arachnos maps, and the new praetorian indoor maps, I find many places to use tornado. Unlike most tanks that stand outside the door of the dead end offices and the corner offices and the upstairs office, and the dead end sewers or arachnos maps to taunt them out, I like to lead spawns INTO such locations, especially the corner office. Herdicane, run in the office, block the door with hurricane, rinse the foes down with rain and drop Mr. Twisty in your custom kill zone. I don't get trapped/cornered because most every stormy I have has combat tp to get right through the crowd. Between the office furniture and the small size of the office, even the laziest scrappers shouldn't complain about the knockback.
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.
Indeed. One disadvantage of this style of guide is that it does not lend itself particularly well to tactics that rely on multiple powers. I try to touch on a few specifics (The hurricane-tornado pseudo hold both in this section and back in Hurricane) but include too many and things quickly become even more unwieldy than they already are. I think a mention of that could be fairly easily incorporated into the hurricane section with a brief cross reference here.
Draggynn on Virtue: lvl 50 Storm/Psi, 1389 badges
Draggynn's Guide to Storm Summoning(Gale-Tornado, updated 6/25/2011)
Avatar by Wassy full reference here
My memory may be a bit fuzzy, but I recall Tornado seeming to prefer to disorient a mob and then come back to defend me if something else came up and tried to rip my face off. I'll try to test it again this weekend, since it's something I see a lot if I'm soloing.
Quote:
I've heard this before, though never seen it myself. Supposedly, Tornado stays on an enemy until it is disoriented, then moves on to another enemy.
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Originally Posted by Midnight_Tempest
My memory may be a bit fuzzy, but I recall Tornado seeming to prefer to disorient a mob and then come back to defend me if something else came up and tried to rip my face off.
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Quote:
Trying to test Mob AI is something that is remarkably hard to do because there are so many factors that come into it. Thus I tried to keep my discussion of Tornado AI limited to things that 1) I could actually test quite thoroughly (like leash distance) or 2) leave vague enough that no one could feel that I had been dishonest about Tornado's behavior. I would welcome your testing results, but probably won't incorporate them into the guide.|
Originally Posted by Midnight_Tempest
My memory may be a bit fuzzy, but I recall Tornado seeming to prefer to disorient a mob and then come back to defend me if something else came up and tried to rip my face off. I'll try to test it again this weekend, since it's something I see a lot if I'm soloing.
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by Garent
I've heard this before, though never seen it myself. Supposedly, Tornado stays on an enemy until it is disoriented, then moves on to another enemy.
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Also a mob cannot become disoriented while tornado is attacking it, so if a mob becomes disoriented that means to some extent that tornado has already moved on (or has just been too slow in catching up to it).
Draggynn on Virtue: lvl 50 Storm/Psi, 1389 badges
Draggynn's Guide to Storm Summoning(Gale-Tornado, updated 6/25/2011)
Avatar by Wassy full reference here
Quote:
This would match enemy AI that will mezz something and then move onto another target if possible.
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Originally Posted by Garent
I've heard this before, though never seen it myself. Supposedly, Tornado stays on an enemy until it is disoriented, then moves on to another enemy.
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Is it stun or kb that prompts it to move on (or both)? Tornado will INDEED return to the caster if it runs out of targets, Many times, I COUNT ON it. Thereby, if it's out of sight and didn't come back, it found something really chewy I didn't expect and then I maneuver to see what's ahead. It's a 'ghetto mapping' tool of sorts.
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.
My own experience says that tornado simply switches targets regularly. I don't use it on mobs often though, and I'd be seeing similar behavior if it were attacking whatever is nearest at the time or was attacking things that haven't been knocked back recently.
Quote:
It might be worth mentioning in this section that the aura works even if there isn't a tornado out at the time. This was something that I wondered about until recently.
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Originally Posted by Draggynn
How about pet resistance and defense auras?
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Quote:
But will it stay on a target until the target is mezzed?? My inclination is to say no. Fortunately, this is the easier premise to test. If one immobilizes a target, and then summons tornado on the target, tornado should never leave to chase another target, because in order for that target to get stunned, tornado would need to stop attacking the target so the terminate condition would never be met. This does not sound accurate to me, but I will test (probably won't have time until Monday though).|
Originally Posted by Amy_Amp
This would match enemy AI that will mezz something and then move onto another target if possible.
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The harder question to test is if Tornado changes targets after an enemy is stunned and I think it would be almost impossible to differentiate what we know happens, "when tornado stops attacking a target it will get stunned" from the possible, "when a target is stunned tornado will stop attacking it". If someone has an experiment that will clearly differentiate between those two situation I'm happy to try it. Otherwise, I think including anything to that effect in the guide would be claiming to know more than we do.
I think that is certainly likely to be one factor in the AI's decision to choose a target, but I don't know where that stands in relation to proximity concerns (both to tornado and the user) or any sort of aggro metric that tornado might use, so I'm extremely hesitant to make any such claim in the guide.
Draggynn on Virtue: lvl 50 Storm/Psi, 1389 badges
Draggynn's Guide to Storm Summoning(Gale-Tornado, updated 6/25/2011)
Avatar by Wassy full reference here
Quote:
Indeed. I will stick some mention that the default state is twirling idly near the caster somewhere in the power description.|
Originally Posted by Psylenz
Is it stun or kb that prompts it to move on (or both)? Tornado will INDEED return to the caster if it runs out of targets, Many times, I COUNT ON it. Thereby, if it's out of sight and didn't come back, it found something really chewy I didn't expect and then I maneuver to see what's ahead. It's a 'ghetto mapping' tool of sorts.
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by Garent
My own experience says that tornado simply switches targets regularly. I don't use it on mobs often though, and I'd be seeing similar behavior if it were attacking whatever is nearest at the time or was attacking things that haven't been knocked back recently.
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| It might be worth mentioning in this section that the aura works even if there isn't a tornado out at the time. This was something that I wondered about until recently. |
Draggynn on Virtue: lvl 50 Storm/Psi, 1389 badges
Draggynn's Guide to Storm Summoning(Gale-Tornado, updated 6/25/2011)
Avatar by Wassy full reference here
Great work as always.
I'll toss in a couple of Mastermind comments, you don't need to add them to the guide but it might help someone later if the info is in the thread.
The Mastermind version of Mu Mastery's Electrifying Fences is an AoE -KB immob, admittedly the radius isn't huge.
And MMs should always slot the pet resistance and defence procs when possible. For sets like bots or ninjas that can't slot them in any primary powers, tornado is a godsend.
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I hear what you are saying, but to clarify, you mean the recharge intensive pet global resist and defense bonuses.
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Originally Posted by anonymoose
Great work as always.
I'll toss in a couple of Mastermind comments, you don't need to add them to the guide but it might help someone later if the info is in the thread. The Mastermind version of Mu Mastery's Electrifying Fences is an AoE -KB immob, admittedly the radius isn't huge. And MMs should always slot the pet resistance and defence procs when possible. For sets like bots or ninjas that can't slot them in any primary powers, tornado is a godsend. |
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.
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Exactly. Pet damage IOs can be slotted by your MM pets but some MM primaries don't have a power to slot recharge intensive pet IOs.|
Originally Posted by Psylenz
I hear what you are saying, but to clarify, you mean the recharge intensive pet global resist and defense bonuses.
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bots - no
ninjas - no
mercenaries - no
thugs - yes - gang war
demons - yes - hell on earth
necro - yes - soul extraction
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So tankers are running up to the doorways of small rooms where there are mobs within and taunting them out? I think the objective is to give people no reason to go in where they will bunched in close by the smallness of the room and get aoe'd, this at the same time can prevent overwhelming the tank by an alpha..but yeah anywhere there is a small room full of mobs or say on an arachnos map where the corner rooms can step down then go for it with Tornado. With dead ends I'd be galing into them additionally.
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Originally Posted by Psylenz
In office maps, sewers, arachnos maps, and the new praetorian indoor maps, I find many places to use tornado. Unlike most tanks that stand outside the door of the dead end offices and the corner offices and the upstairs office, and the dead end sewers or arachnos maps to taunt them out, I like to lead spawns INTO such locations, especially the corner office.
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He will honor his words; he will definitely carry out his actions. What he promises he will fulfill. He does not care about his bodily self, putting his life and death aside to come forward for another's troubled besiegement. He does not boast about his ability, or shamelessly extol his own virtues. - Sima Qian.
So far, I'm having difficulty replicating the target-switching behavior in a play environment. Or rather, I'm not having difficulty getting Tornado to change targets, but getting it to change targets while being certain that the behavior wasn't caused by mob proximity or leashing. It appears the behavior occurs, but it's not practically reliable.
I'll try to test some more over the weekend. Hopefully I'll be able to better isolate this little quirk. After trying to force the behavior to occur in missions and a small team, I would leave mention of it out of the guide, as it is at-best elusive.
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Hmmm ... I had not been aware of this. Guess I need to check to see which SO/HO/IO/Sets Suppressive Fire will accept. I'm thinking Acc/Mez and Dam/Mez HOs would be particularly useful in Suppressive Fire since they would be "universally" useful regardless of ammo type selected when using Suppressive Fire.|
Originally Posted by Draggynn
I love Tornado, but I hate the knockback, is there anything I can do?
Well, sort of. There are a number of powers in the game which cause -KB, meaning that enemies under this are much harder to be knocked back (in general it becomes virtually impossible). Unfortunately of those open to a Storm Defender there are: Dual Pistols: Suppressive Fire (single target hold if incendiary or toxic ammo are loaded) |
And Draggynn, I've (finally!) finished reading all the sections of your guide(s) on Storm powers. When I got to the end, I found myself wondering where the entry for Lightning Storm would be found.
It's the end. But the moment has been prepared for ...
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I'm glad that you found it useful! The Lightning Storm section is in the works, and I intend to have it out before the end of August (but then I planned on finishing the guide before GR came out as well...so...). There are still a couple procs I need to finishing testing, but the majority of "research" for it is done.
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Originally Posted by Redlynne
And Draggynn, I've (finally!) finished reading all the sections of your guide(s) on Storm powers. When I got to the end, I found myself wondering where the entry for Lightning Storm would be found.
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Draggynn on Virtue: lvl 50 Storm/Psi, 1389 badges
Draggynn's Guide to Storm Summoning(Gale-Tornado, updated 6/25/2011)
Avatar by Wassy full reference here
Having looked over the slotting recommendations for Tornado (again), I'm a little bit surprised by one omission in the slotting section ... 
Knockback Sets. Now I know you mention the possibility of the Force Feedback Proc in the context of all of the Procs that can be slotted (and there's plenty of them!), but you don't really address what happens to Tornado when intentionally slotting it for Knockback.
Yes, I'm wondering what happens when you enhance a somewhat undesirable (usually) aspect of the power which tends to cause scattering of hostiles.
I'm wondering what happens if you were to 6-slot ... say ... a Kinetic Crash set (for the 7.5% global recharge and -3 KB Protection) using ... let's say ... Level 30-ish IOs. By my "back of the envelope" calculations, that would increase the KnockBACK to around Mag 33(!). That in turn makes me wonder ... what does that do to EBs and AVs? I'm guessing "nothing" unless the PToD are down, since the duration on the KB is 0.3 sec and the activation time on the damage/KB ticks are 0.5 sec, so the KB will never get a chance to stack with itself.
Except ... Storm has GALE ... and Gale does Knockback too ...
If you 6-slot both Gale and Tornado both with Level 27 Kinetic Crash sets ... that gives Gale a Mag 27.4 Knockback, and Tornado a Mag 32.9 Knockback. Together, that yields a Mag 60.3 Knockback combination ... which is greater than the 50+6 = Mag 56 required to Knockback an AV while the Purple Triangles of Doom are UP 
Mind you, this is all theoretical, back of the spreadsheet using crayons analysis in a vacuum here, since I don't have a Storm Defender of my own to go check this out (on the Test Server). So until someone goes ahead and tests it out on something/someone, it'll be hard to know if a combination of Gale+Tornado and slotting both for Knockback (really?!) of all things might yield an "AV Level Banana Peel Debuff" effect that is effective even through PToD(!), yielding a significant effective DPS Debuff to the AV (and *every* Tanker and Brute who holds aggro will want you on their team for that!). Being able to keep an AV in "perma Knockback" as a sort of Ghetto Hold (just add terrain!) using Gale and Tornado, when slotted with Kinetic Crash sets, may very well be trivially easy to sustain in actual gameplay by a single Storm Defender.
Of course, doing this would mean that your Gale and Tornado powers would almost certainly be horrifically overpowered with respect to "blowing away" anything that isn't an EB or AV ... leading to an entirely different class of playstyle "problems" when dealing with Crunchies of Boss class and below. 
It's the end. But the moment has been prepared for ...
The extra knockback in gale wouldn't be so bothersome as the radial knockback in tornado. However, in my builds of storm/? I don't recall have 4 extra slots available for Gale 
. Tornado really need damage bonuses since it is autohit and since it is so useful on targets that it CANNOT knockback.
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.
Hence why I'm thinking it would be unfair (not to mention, greedy) to expect someone to respec their Live build in order to go test this. Now ... gathering up the parts and pieces needed off the market to make 10 of the needed Kinetic Combats so they can sit in the enhancement tray, and gather up the last 2 recipes and salvage needed to make them and holding that in inventory ... and then copying to Test Server so as to respec for a "quick" round of testing ... that would be different. Heck, you could even use a "quick and dirty" AE mission with AVs only in it to test if the combo is practical. That way, no one has to sacrifice their Live build (and a respec) for scie^H^H^H^H research.
It's the end. But the moment has been prepared for ...
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I run all of my testing on test so that I can have essentially limitless access to merits (and now emp merits) to get the IO sets that I need to test. To perform the test that you are suggesting though does not require buying and crafting kinetic combats, simply buy some generic KB IOs from a vendor to test with.|
Originally Posted by Redlynne
Hence why I'm thinking it would be unfair (not to mention, greedy) to expect someone to respec their Live build in order to go test this. Now ... gathering up the parts and pieces needed off the market to make 10 of the needed Kinetic Combats so they can sit in the enhancement tray, and gather up the last 2 recipes and salvage needed to make them and holding that in inventory ... and then copying to Test Server so as to respec for a "quick" round of testing ... that would be different. Heck, you could even use a "quick and dirty" AE mission with AVs only in it to test if the combo is practical. That way, no one has to sacrifice their Live build (and a respec) for scie^H^H^H^H research.
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The simple answer to your question though is that, no this will not work. AVs have a KB protection of 100, not 50 and it does not go away when purple triangles drop. There is an odd artifact that right before the purple triangles come back up they lose this protection for a second or so (so if you manage to KB an AV, that's likely what you're seeing: not sufficient stacking and timing of Tornado and Gale, but rather that second when the AV has no KB protection at all.)
Also, in the real numbers KB resistance is not reported anywhere, but it appears that at least the AVs I tested also have KB resistance on the order of the 85% resistance that they have to other debuffs, so KBing most AVs is not a viable option. Now there may be some AVs that have lower KB protection (I know that Romulus has low or no repel protection), but in general this will not work.
There was no mention of KB sets in the guide because I don't think that those are intelligent slotting options so they were intentionally omitted for that reason. But thank you for raising the question. I will likely include the above explanation in the final guide in case there are other inquisitive minds that wonder.
Draggynn on Virtue: lvl 50 Storm/Psi, 1389 badges
Draggynn's Guide to Storm Summoning(Gale-Tornado, updated 6/25/2011)
Avatar by Wassy full reference here
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Originally Posted by Amy_Amp
This would match enemy AI that will mezz something and then move onto another target if possible.
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Originally Posted by Draggynn
But will it stay on a target until the target is mezzed?? My inclination is to say no. Fortunately, this is the easier premise to test. If one immobilizes a target, and then summons tornado on the target, tornado should never leave to chase another target, because in order for that target to get stunned, tornado would need to stop attacking the target so the terminate condition would never be met. This does not sound accurate to me, but I will test (probably won't have time until Monday though).
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Draggynn on Virtue: lvl 50 Storm/Psi, 1389 badges
Draggynn's Guide to Storm Summoning(Gale-Tornado, updated 6/25/2011)
Avatar by Wassy full reference here
Originally I was going to hold off on posting this until I had the Lightning Storm section done as well, but I figured I wouldn't make folks wait any longer. The final section will be done by the end of the summer, and then I will go through and edit based on folks recommendations and post the final guide in the guides section. Since I missed my original GR goal, my new target will be to get the guide finished by the time City of Heroes: Freedom launches.
). Feel free to point out typos but don't spend time proofreading as things may change in the final draft (Early sections have already been substantially rewritten).
Some background on the guide:
Back in 2009 I started working on this guide and have been expanding it power by power over the last 2 years. The original target of the guide was for relatively experienced players, but those that didn't have a firm grasp of underlying game mechanics. The goal of this guide was also to be one stop shopping for any questions you might have about Storm Summoning so it is quite comprehensive (I hope). Based on feedback I have modified the structure of the guide to attempt to make it more accessible to new players, although it now has a strange combination of treating you like you know a lot and like you know nothing.
All feedback is welcome and I am particularly interested if there are any questions you have about Tornado that you don't see answered, or information that you believe I have wrong. I like to think about this guide a little as a cumulative effort of the community (although my opinion will trump yours
The other sections of the guide can be found at:
Gale
O2 Boost
Snow Storm
Steamy Mist
Freezing Rain
Hurricane
Thunder Clap
And without further ado, the guide! And the guide should now be posted with all links active. If you think there's a link missing, or one of the links is broken, please let me know.
Draggynn on Virtue: lvl 50 Storm/Psi, 1389 badges
Draggynn's Guide to Storm Summoning(Gale-Tornado, updated 6/25/2011)
Avatar by Wassy full reference here