* Storm (Modern) * [PRE 2014-07]

Unknown

mags1587 wrote:

Having played with both a 5/5/3 Storm and a 5/3/5 Storm, I have to say I personally prefer the 5/3/5 version. Practically speaking, when I'm playing I don't really use her red power more often at 5ap than I do at 7ap. Partially because I do wait a bit for the environmental tiles to build up on the board, but really, with her green, I'm never really lacking for ap, so I've never been 1 or 2 ap short of firing off her red power when I want to. Having 32 tiles at black level 5 vs 20 tiles at black level 3, though? I like having those extra 12 tiles. Every little bit helps and it takes that much longer to clear all of the tiles off the board.

If you scan the board at the beginning of a match, you'll often see matches to be made once environmental tiles are removed. Cascading matches give a good head start. (5/5) Mistress of the Elements is 5 AP, which make it immediately available with the hidden cache boosts.

Unknown

I prefer 5/5/3 because 2-stars have beter dps options.

Unknown

Kelbris wrote:

This is horrible debate etiquette. Stop that.

If you're set on trying to convince people you're right, instead of actually discussing builds to try and make a consensus about which builds help you win matches faster and easier, you should rethink why you're on this board. If you know better than everyone, what's the point of discussing your amazing opinions with us? Are you being charitable?

I'm not having a debate with you, am I? Did you read the previous post to see why I answered like that? Yes? No? Doesn't matter. You can't judge me. I don't know you. Also, I'm not sure how you can see yourself to be entitled to warning me.

Unknown

I'm not having a debate with you, am I? Did you read the previous post to see why I answered like that? Yes? No? Doesn't matter. You can't judge me. I don't know you. Also, I'm not sure how you can see yourself to be entitled to warning me.

All I can say is that the ignorant strives to be more ignorant.

We should leave people like Kevin to their own devices. They refuse to learn anything. Not our loss.

Unknown

Kelbris wrote:

Who the hell uses a term like "playing the game wrong?" There's no right way to play a game like this.

I can agree with this statement. Can't say I agree with the rest of what you said.

Anyway, I can understand that you would think that 6 AP for Mistress is logical, since it is 2 matches, and even at 5 AP you would still need 2 matches at least.

However, I won't be using just 1 mistress for the entire battle. And if I team her with others using Red, it will help.

The idea is to make it cost effective. Lower the cost, make it spammable, use it to profit from chains and cascades.

ihearthawthats wrote:

I prefer 5/5/3 because 2-stars have beter dps options.

She works surprising well even when teamed up with 2 stars in my opinion. Yeah, I'll be using her for the board changing and generating of AP, not DPS.

Unknown

First of all: I don't want to argue about what is the best build or not. If you like black and want to max it, that's fine by me. I'm just giving my thoughts on the subject, and the conclusions I have come to, after having used different versions of Storm for quite some time.

My first Storm was 4/4/5, I think. I build her that way before I knew about the level cap. When I ran into several "storm combos" which pummeled high hp-characters from 2500 to 0 hp in no time, I got very impressed by her red ability and rebuilt her. Also, getting 32 attack tiles wasn't always the best thing, especially when fighting goons and I wanted to use Hawkeye's abilities but the tiles had already been converted to attack tiles and therefore wasn't "open" for Hawkeye's abilities. Also, the attack tiles seldom made a deep enough impact on the fight to be justified.

So my first rebuild ended up in a 5/4/4 build instead. The green ability is way too awesome to not be maxed, but I figured that getting 24 attack tiles instead of 20, was a better option than just lowering the red ability from 6 mana to 5. However, after having used this build for quite awhile, I now realize that I want to deal damage mainly by using the green and red ability, and the extra cost reduction on the red ability IS worthwhile, because it greatly increases the chances of enabling the neverending "storm combo" and letting her activate both those abilities for...well, forever. More or less. The black ability doesn't feel important for me, I use it very seldom.

So now I'm off to rebuild AGAIN, this time she will be 5/5/3. So I lose 4 attack tiles by doing this, giving me 20 attack tiles instead of 24 (or 32), but since I will get more mana combos, I will build up mana faster and be able to activate the black ability more often than before, so two activations of a maxed black would give 64 attack tiles (but since there are always some environment tiles, you will never get that much anyway). 32 tiles already seem very much. Three activations of the black ability gives 60 attack tiles but I don't think you will need to activate it more than once or twice. And like I said earlier; getting more mana combos builds up mana faster, letting you activate the black faster. So I think 5/5/3 could be very smart.

Activating the red ability even ONCE can be a major gamechanger. Activating the black most often isn't. Storm is the only character so far that has a very big board-altering ability, effectively wiping out all environment tiles, greatly increasing the chance of getting cascade combos, earning more mana and doing more damage by those combos, and also increasing the chance of activating both the green and black abilities as a direct effect following a red activation. Also, you get rid of all those pesky environment tiles, increasing the chance of getting better matches in the future. And finally, you can often activate the environment abilities very fast (and stopping the opponent from doing the same). Activating the forest ability gives you 5 more mana of each color and 5 more mana will essentially give you another red activation (if you've maxed the red ability, that is).

The bottom line is this: Even though the difference is very small between 6 mana or 5 mana to activate the red ability, there IS an important difference. Match 3 red two times and you get 6 mana, letting you activate it once. If it costs only 5, you get to save one mana. Now, after three such activations, you have either used up 18 mana or 15. That's right. 15. Meaning you only have to match red five times instead of six to activate the red ability three times. That's a huge difference, and it's enough argument for me to max her red ability.

mags1587

Heh. You're the exact opposite of me. I had a Storm built 5/5/3 and rebuilt her 5/3/5 after the 1* tournament during which her black power kicked my **** more often than not.

I was jealous of the extra attack tiles other teams were able to place, and plus, I never really use her red more than once or twice. After the first time, the environment tiles just don't refresh quickly enough for me to use red again effectively. Even when combined with her green.

I'm not regretting going 5 in black; pair it with any strike tile and the damage will add up quickly, especially since I can usually get it off twice in a battle which effectively fills the screen. And once it's on the board it takes forever to clear all of the tiles off.

I am half-wondering if I should have gone 5/4/4, though. Because that one extra match to fire off her red is really starting to bug me. Not enough to actually rebuild her for a third time, though. (Not yet, anyway.)

Unknown

I edited my answer a little more now, just wanted to point it out in case you want to read more my whole argument.

Unknown

mags1587 wrote:

Heh. You're the exact opposite of me. I had a Storm built 5/5/3 and rebuilt her 5/3/5 after the 1* tournament during which her black power kicked my **** more often than not.

I was jealous of the extra attack tiles other teams were able to place, and plus, I never really use her red more than once or twice. After the first time, the environment tiles just don't refresh quickly enough for me to use red again effectively. Even when combined with her green.

I'm not regretting going 5 in black; pair it with any strike tile and the damage will add up quickly, especially since I can usually get it off twice in a battle which effectively fills the screen. And once it's on the board it takes forever to clear all of the tiles off.

I am half-wondering if I should have gone 5/4/4, though. Because that one extra match to fire off her red is really starting to bug me. Not enough to actually rebuild her for a third time, though. (Not yet, anyway.)

For me, it's often like this: There are at least 10 environment tiles on the board. I gather 6 red mana and activate the ability. It wipes the board almost clean of environment tiles, maybe 1-4 are left after the "cleanse". The cleanse either gets me enough green mana, or makes it possible for me to get enough green. I activate it and the void fills with new environment tiles. The green cleanse often gives me enough red mana to activate red again and so it moves on, in a wonderful, neverending, unfair carousel of pain.

Combining that with Original Black Widow, means that I get a lot of purple and blue mana also, and the purple lets me steal what the opponent has gathered, letting me activate red and green even more times, and the blue ability keeps me alive. Well, it's just crazy sometimes. And crazy winz a lot. A lot more than just activating black and then sitting there wondering whether to match the tiles I want, removing my attack tiles, or matching some lame color I don't want, just to keep the attack tiles. Let's just say the black ability doesn't go along very well with me. I have moved from maxed black, to black 4 and am still very unhappy with it. I figure going from 24 attack tiles to 20 won't bother me much.

mags1587

You do make a really good argument for a 5/5/3 build. Just to be clear, I don't think 5/5/3 is a bad build at all, I think it comes down to personal preference and play-style. Sounds like you will definitely appreciate a 5/5/3 build.

For me, with a 5/3/5 build, I can still fire off red a couple times in a battle at 7ap, plus I get the extra incremental damage. And maybe it was just my luck with board refreshes, but even after using her green, often there would only be 4 or 5 environmental tiles; not enough to make firing off red worth it. So even with red at 5 ap I was only firing it off two or at max, three times a battle. So red at 5ap vs red at 7ap isn't making much of a difference for me, personally. (Except for having to wait that one extra match before I can fire off red initially.)

Unknown

mags1587 wrote:

You do make a really good argument for a 5/5/3 build. Just to be clear, I don't think 5/5/3 is a bad build at all, I think it comes down to personal preference and play-style. Sounds like you will definitely appreciate a 5/5/3 build.

For me, with a 5/3/5 build, I can still fire off red a couple times in a battle at 7ap, plus I get the extra incremental damage. And maybe it was just my luck with board refreshes, but even after using her green, often there would only be 4 or 5 environmental tiles; not enough to make firing off red worth it. So even with red at 5 ap I was only firing it off two or at max, three times a battle. So red at 5ap vs red at 7ap isn't making much of a difference for me, personally. (Except for having to wait that one extra match before I can fire off red initially.)

Totally agree with you, it all depends on personal playing style and I love abusing the cascade effects so I think I'm doing the right thing here (for me, that is, since I've already used black 5 and black 4 and wasn't pleased with the results). Since I also use Original Black Widow, I get lots of all mana, and regularly crash the board and also get a lot of environment tiles during those sessions. However, I do think you would actually like having red 4 instead of red 3, 6 mana is much easier to get than 7 mana. Sometimes you luck out and can match four red, which in turn will often get you one more mana when the row or column vanishes and that means a total of 5 red mana and that means...CASCADE TIME!

Storm is a powerful character, too bad (or maybe good) she can't get higher than level 50.

Unknown

mags1587 wrote:

I'm not regretting going 5 in black; pair it with any strike tile and the damage will add up quickly, especially since I can usually get it off twice in a battle which effectively fills the screen. And once it's on the board it takes forever to clear all of the tiles off.

If you are using her black with strike tiles, you get the same boost whether it's 20 or 32 attack tiles. 20 attack tiles are still hard to clear out completely before you can use it again. Also, with attack tiles on the board, using her black twice close together will be a waste anyway. It could also clog up some red tiles that you need for more strike tiles. I have a 5/3/5 build but would rather have a 5/5/3.

Unknown

Hailstorm is really good early on, but quickly loses traction. 5 in black is typically neglible.

Unknown

If she was a 2 or 3 star cover she would be absolutely insane. imagine having her black at lvl 85...each one would do like 30 damage theoretically right?

Nonce Equitaur 2

Modern Storm is the most popular of the 1* characters.

She should be promoted to 3*, with the same abilities she has now. Those that have her, she would be identical as she is now. However, they could start leveling her up to level 141, with the appropriate increases in damage/health points each level.

Her covers could still be gained in the Prologue, as they are now. Her covers would be made rarer in the "Get your Covers" areas.

Meanwhile, some new 1* villains should be brought in for new blood -- and *not* ones that a lot of people would want to collect. Some potential 1* villains: Wrecking crew (Bulldozer, Piledriver, Thunderball, Wrecker), Sabretooth, Sandman, Kraven the Hunter, Lady Deathstrike, Scorpion, Absorbing Man, Jigsaw, Taskmaster, Onslaught, Shocker, Mephisto, Pyro, Blackheart, Chameleon, Dark Phoenix, Carrion, Stryfe, Mr. Sinister, Morgan le Fay, and Tiger-Shark.

Unknown

Be easier to just allow us to add additional covers to her for a +10 Max HP increase. She won't be as squishy and it won't make her OP. Plus, it would actually make you want to get standard tokens in an attempt to increase certain lower leveled characters you like/use.

Unknown

Modern Storm is not broken just because she has pitful health, and her black damage is proportioned to the low level.

If she was made a 3* with 5k health and a scaling black ability, she would just win battles alone. Just NO.

She is just fine as she is, a very interesting 1* with that retains some value in the late game, at times.

Also please not another clone trio, BW and Wolvie are far enough.

OnesOwnGrief

Don't give the devs ideas to throw level 240 modern storms at you.

Unknown

I don't think there needs to be a stronger storm but I think there should be at least another character that has her level of board clear that generates AP and/or another character that collects those three colors. Potentially with a weak passive heal so you can take them into higher ranked battles.

Unknown

She is perfectly fine as is. In fact. She is deadly enough as is because she can single-handedly generate enough AP to fuel all the abilities of the rest of your team. She is my number 1 target in PvP and PvE.

As long as you put stronger units in front of her and deny the enemies the AP they need to hit your entire team then she should be safe. Just because you are a bad player doesn't mean the devs should change things.

I've brought in storm vs level 100 enemies and as long as I have a meat shield (like Thor) in front of her then she's mostly safe.