Storm/Sonic Defender Powers
Last Modified: June 10, 2021
Your primary powers are your main buff/debuff and control powers. Your secondary is generally ranged attacks (many of these powersets are shared with blasters, but are less powerful versions). You can afford to be a little more reckless than Blasters, but battles can take a lot longer due to your lower damage potential.
In most cases, you are best paired with high-damage dealers such as Blasters, Tanks, Scrappers, or Kheldians. Storm especially is good with Blasters because you can keep enemies out of melee range with your various powers.
Power Pool Recommendations
Read my Power Pools Guide for general information on the pools, but the following are Storm/Sonic Defender specific issues with power pools.
Remember my Jeremy's Advanced Travel Guide for avoiding travel powers until later levels allowing you to get more regular powers first.
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Fighting
If you're desperate for the defensive bonuses of the last two powers in this set, go for it, but the melee range stuff is kind of a waste of time. As a Storm/Sonic, your goal is keep them out of melee range.
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Concealment
The first power in this set, Stealth, is completely negated by your Steamy Mist power in your Primary. It's a team stealth power that gives you defense against everything, and resistance to Fire, Cold, and Energy. The second power, Grant Invisibility, is only good for sneaking teammates past enemies. Since you already have a team stealth power, this isn't as useful and there's a better option. With Recall Friend from the Teleporation pool, you can sneak to a target, then TP the team to you.
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Presence
There's something to be said for taunting enemies into wanted to close to melee range and then knocking them back out of melee range. It's a concept that has potential, but not my choice of powers so far. I may try this if I have room at the higher levels (or on a different character).
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Medicine
This can be useful because of the self heal. This pool also gives you a Resurrect which you lack, but an awaken with 02 Boost can be nearly as good.
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Leadership
Useful for the buffs. The biggest problem here is that Storm/Sonic already has many powers that draw endurance and you won't really have the room for more.
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Teleportation
I highly recommend Recall Friend for the Sneak and TP combo. Since you already have a stealth power, this works very well. TP Foe could be useful if your Snowstorm anchor tries to run or if you want to corner something, but don't have a good angle on it. As for TP as a travel power, I didn't think it fit well with my concept, but if you want to go for the Tsoo sorcerer thing, go for it.
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Fitness
There are some Archetypes and builds that can skip the Stamina series. This is not one of them. The only real decision to make here is whether you want Swift or Hurdle. Take Swift if you plan on Fly as a travel power for the speed boost. Otherwise, it's up to preference.
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Speed
I've noticed that most Defenders benefit from Hasten because they tend to have slow recharging powers. But the most important reason to get the Speed pool is for Super Speed. SS as a travel power is limited because you don't have the ability to move vertically, but by getting Hover, using the Jump Jet Pack (which you can buy separately if you don't have the special Box version of CoH that gives it to you), or by using a temporary travel power (earned on Safeguard missions), you can overcome this. SS with Steamy Mist gives you full invisibility which you can use to get awesome screenshots, sneak through entire missions (awesome for tfs), and travel completely safely (about the only thing that can see through this is Villains in pvp, Archvillains, and Monsters). Best of all, what better fun to whirl around with whirlwind right next to your pet Tornado? (Fun but mostly useless: more on this later).
As a squishy character, Super Jump is a risky power to take because you can land in the middle of a group of enemies and get killed very quickly. However, if you're desperate to have Acrobatics for the immobilization defense, you don't really have an option.
Fly may be slow, but I've already got Swift from the Fitness pool which will speed it up slightly. It also gives me safe travel and it's the best power for badge hunting so if you are building a badge-er, Fly will be your best bet.
Leaping
Fly
Inherent Powers
For many of my builds, I leave these unslotted. That's mostly because each power becomes useless over time. In this case, brawl is meaningless after a few levels because you'll use much better ranged attacks instead. Sprint is unnecessary after you get real (or temporary) travel powers so there's no point in taking the endurance drain to leave it on. Rest is useful until you get Health and Stamina and sometimes later too, but that's a judgment call based on experience. I find that I don't need it enough to slot it so I leave it unslotted too.
![]() | 01: Brawl | ![]() | ![]() | ![]() |
![]() | 01: Sprint | ![]() | ![]() | ![]() |
![]() | 02: Rest | ![]() | ![]() | ![]() |
![]() | ![]() | Sprint does have one major use and that's Stealth. If you get a stealth IO from EITHER the jump set or run, you can slot it into sprint and then turn sprint on when you want to sneak. Note that with a stealth IO and steamy mist, you are fully invisible (assuming you didn't take Super Speed which makes the IO pointless for PvE) |
As for your Archetype power, Defenders get Vigilance. With Vigilance, your powers cost less endurance as your teammates lose life. This is useful because you can have a lot of teammates and any one of them that's skirting death will give you the bonus (theoretically). The idea is that in a pinch, you can go crazy launching powers to try and save your team.
More importantly, when soloing, it will give a significant damage bonus (which decreases as more people join your team). While this used to be a fairly lack-luster power, it now is pretty cool!