Storm Defenders Unite

To all stormies out there, im building a storm defender right now, which not trying to brag but he lvl'd 20 times in 1 day. Anyhow, any advice on the build, cause he's storm/ice and what im doing is trying to just take all possible recharge/speed away from enemy mobs. With snowstorm, freezing rain, and ice storm. I figure chaining those 3 all together will take away all recharge from the enemy and keeps the team alive cause the baddies can't attack fast enough to do real damage. With the 3 working all together they stack right? I also slot my freezing rain and other powers not for damage but for slow, and defense debuff's. So far this build is alot of fun cause of the animations and storm is just alot of fun. Another strategy I plan on running at higher lvl's is to run Hurricane, Gale, and multiple tornado's in a mission and the whole point of that strategy is to keep the enemies from having the ability to stand and fight. With hurricane tossing them around and taking their acc. away and tornado throwing them around and gale sending them flying away, I understand it will be a pain for any tanker trying to herd but wont the team live far better doing this cause the enemy is constantly on its back. It may be tedious chashing all the baddies 1 by 1 but the team would have a better chance living right? Anyway thats just a strategy i was thinking about doing later on for fun. Any advice how I should use this storm/ice build to the up-most adavantage let me know. Thanks all feedback is most appreciated.

Also, I read that storm defenders are the best at debuffing the enemy team. The aim to this build is to debuff the enemy team as possible.

Off topic: It's OK to use paragraph breaks.

On topic again,

* Snow Storm + Freezing Rain alone (without any sort of slow enhancements) will hit the slow cap on non-purple level baddies. But by all means add in Ice Storm - it's a great fun combo.

* While leveling up, I'd focus on recharge and endred on FR. Even on late levels, slotting with DefDebuff is not a must.

* You don't necessarily have to make a Tanker's life miserable by knowcking things back all the time. Try and master your "Hurricane brushing" so you can still debuff the foes without repeling/kbing much. As for Tornado, well, I only unleash it in specific situations (presence of a controller/domi with AoE immob with -kb; AV/GM fights; and when situations get a bit out of hand - chaos can help sometimes).


You should be able to find decent builds around. You just need to figure out your playstyle first and decide which kind of bonus will you be betting on. +Rech is always a good thing for a stormie. So is endrec. Some Ranged defense is also handy, although I tend to advise against cap'ing it on a stormy.

There are also a few guides/threads with power descriptions and useage. Sail around through the Defender's thread, it should be easy to find.

MINT; decaff buddy, no seriously it's refreshing to see a lot of enthusiasm over storm.

1. False_Fiction is correct: Snow Storm and Freezing Rain stacked together floors the foes recharge abilities (except uber bosses, AVs and purple content). As you say, it is very useful, and it IS more beneficial than a lot of folks would give it credit for.

2. Recharge and End Reduction are the first priorities. Slow, Stun, and defense debuff are worthy, just not priority. Again, content with elites bosses, AVs, purple content, extra defense debuff is quite useful. Some people complain that defense debuff (and slow, etc) are resisted; that's my excuse for banking more.

3. What you are describing as going around a room and denying the foes the ability to stand up is a situation I refer to as: Total Chaos. When my stormies declare total chaos, my usual teammates sometimes cringe, but I don't usually do it in big open rooms unless my dark defender ally is down and the blaster is down with the situation heading south. The other term I use that truly scares the dickens out of teammates is when my stormies say "Oops!". That's code for: TEAM WIPE IMMINENT ASSUME MAXIMUM DEFENSIVE POSITION!

There are strategic uses for total chaos. On office maps, often 2 or more spawns are set up outside a corner office door. If your tank knows what you intend, bounce around with hurricane, follow the tank into the corner office, and block the door with hurricane! THEN, cut loose on the deubffed unsuspecting heard around the conference table. That sound you will hear is not a wood chipper, its Mr Twisty lopping off little chunks of hit points, dealing hundreds of points of damage. This works in dead science lab rooms, demolised building corners in outdoor zones, and warehouse shipping docks. This also plays heavily into blaster AoEs.

4. Slotting priorites:

Gale: Accuracy
O2 Boost: Heal, then Recharge and Endurance Cost about equally
Snow Storm: End Cost Reduction
Hurricane: End Cost and ToHit Debuff
Steamy Mist: End Cost, Defense and Resist Damage to taste (I prefer Resist Damage)
Freezing Rain: Recharge, maybe some Defense Debuff, and some IO procs are good
Thunderclap: Stun and Accuracy
Tornado, Recharge and Damage
Lightning Storm: PILES of Ranged damage: damage and recharge (to spawn more storms)

Just about everything I have to say about Storm is in the guide in my sig.

As a quick note though, Snow Storm and Freezing Rain together floor just about everything's recharge and movement so it's usually not worthwhile to invest slots in slow enhancements (especially on /ice).

Is was doing some reading and came across that there is a damage cap, defense cap, stun and slow cap. With that being said, is there a way to reach the cap for slow and -recharge against enemies with a storm/ice defender?

Also what does softcap mean, is that like only putting 3-4 slots into a power or 6 slots with only S/O's and not I/O's?