Blasting enemies away with Gale (the power, not the person)

Score

2 of 5

Unslotted Strength

.25 x Brawl

Summary

Does a very minor amount of damage and knocks back enemies in a wide cone in front of you. Most players really hate Knockback, but you can use this to great advantage if you know how.

In the end, I marked it 2 out of 5 because it does take some creativity to use it right.

How to Use

There are many reasons you would want to move enemies around:

• First, melee attacks are generally far more powerful than ranged (think Rikti and Lost with their big-ass swords). Keeping enemies at distance is very helpful here.
• Say some enemies escape your AOE effects (like Freezing Rain) or they were never in it to begin with. You can pop them back in.
• Keep runners from getting away (knock them down so they can't run)
• Enemies that fall can't fight back. Particularly when soloing, using gale constantly helps keep you alive.
• If on a team and people hate the knockback when they're busy fighting, you can still make yourself useful by blasting down enemies that are keeping their distance (sniping types or a second group that's already aggroed).
• Some missions and situations require that you keep enemies away. The Terra Volta reactor for example.
• When fighting Arch-villains or GMs that have minions surrounding them, you can use gale to blow away the little guys (AVs and GMs don't tend to get blown back).

To be honest, I waited a while for this one. There were a bunch of other powers I thought I needed first. But Gale is Gale's signature power and there was no way I was going to skip it altogether. However, if I had known how useful it could be when used right, I might not have waited so long.

Recommended # of Slots and Enhancement Priority

	( Default Slot Only ) One slot is usually enough though it's better if you work to get some accuracy bonuses from sets. If you really depend on this power, 2 slots might be warranted, though I never really found that to be the case. 40%   Accuracy (40% Minimum) Default: 67% With max 100% enhancement: 134% This is a bare, bare minimum. If you want to use this power to keep about half of enemy groups on their butts, fine, but if you really want to use it for the cool control and positioning things like I described, try for closer to 60% or better accuracy. 0%   Recharge (0% Minimum) Default: 8 sec With max 100% enhancement: 4 sec If you want to spam this on enemies, bump this up to 40% or better, but in my experience, the default recharge was fine (especially since I have other knockback powers already). 0%   Endurance Reduction (0% Minimum) Default: 7 end With max 100% enhancement: 3.5 end It doesn't cost much and can't be used that quickly. I've never thought 'Man! I really need to lower the end cost on gale!'. 0%   Range (0% Minimum) Default: 50 Feet With max 60% enhancement: 80 Feet 50 feet is not as long as your attacks, but it's still pretty good. 0%   Knockback (0% Minimum) Default: 10 Feet With max 180% enhancement: 28 Feet You could bump this up for fun I guess, but if you want to learn to position people with it, you shouldn't be messing with the distance they're thrown. Learn the default distance and use it that way forever. Though note that this is the ONLY power aspect that can be enhanced to almost 200% of the original value. If you max this out, people will be FLYING! 0%   Damage (0% Minimum) Default: 3 points With max 100% enhancement: 6 points This is a quarter the strength of brawl. It's totally not worth enhancing versus the other aspects of this power. Help The enhanceable properties of this power are listed in order of importance. Hover the mouse over each for detailed information and a description.

O2 Boost - Not a strong heal, but it removes disorient. Very useful

Score

4 of 5

Summary

It's a decent single target heal that has two important advantages and two important disadvantages. The disadvantages are that it only works on team members (not you), and that it's fairly low power as heals go. The advantages are that it recharges VERY fast and it removes (and prevents) disorient/sleep effects.

If you never team at all and you're not playing a Mastermind, Controller or any other AT that has a pet, you could skip this power. In all other cases, this is a great thing to have.

How to Use

Besides the fact that even a weak heal can change the pace of the team, the disorient removal/protection is awesome! For example, if a team member dies and uses an awaken, you can use O2 Boost to both heal them and remove the disorient effect immediately thus allowing them to slap back on their toggles, pop inspirations, and get back into the fight right away (or at least not die again).

If you enhance this, it heals for over a third of your target's life total! Not so weak anymore!

If your team is fighting enemies that tend to stun, hit your teammates with O2 boost before the fight. Also remember that it prevents sleep, endurance drain, and increases their perception at the same time (which has useful PvP applications). The effects just mentioned last for 60 seconds so this power is quite a bit more useful than most people give it credit for.

As with any other single-target heal, when you see a team member go to yellow or red for their life total, just click their name and hit O2 Boost.

Recommended # of Slots and Enhancement Priority

	( 2 Slots ) In my case, I was able to buff heal by a lot and endurance by a little while also getting a set bonus that improved my endurance recovery only using 2 slots. 50%   Heal (50% Minimum) Default: 17% With max 100% enhancement: 34% Healing is this power's main point so buff it up. If you give it two slots, you can get more creative and buff other attributes, but concentrate on heal. 20%   Endurance Reduction (20% Minimum) Default: 13 end With max 100% enhancement: 6.5 end Assuming you give O2 Boost more than one slot, reducing the endurance charge is not a bad idea since it's kind of expensive. 0%   Recharge (0% Minimum) Default: 4 sec With max 100% enhancement: 2 sec This has a very fast recharge for a heal. Put on auto, you'll practically be constantly healing with no room in the middle for attacks. If you can pull it with IO slotting or if you give this power more than 2 slots, recharge is possibly useful. 0%   Range (0% Minimum) Default: 80 Feet With max 60% enhancement: 128 Feet 80 feet is the same distance as your primary attacks and has always been long enough in my experience. Buff it if you must, but I didn't give this any attention. Help The enhanceable properties of this power are listed in order of importance. Hover the mouse over each for detailed information and a description.

Don't skip it!

Score

4 of 5

Summary

Pick a target and fire Snow Storm. Besides having a cool animation, your target and everyone in a wide area around him will be slowed tremendously. A lot of people underestimate the power of powers that slow enemies so if it helps, think of it as doubling your entire team's speed instead.

How to Use

The effect is a toggle so it will last as long as you keep the power active and you have enough endurance, but it will also stop when your target dies so always target big beefy nasty things that are tough so you don't waste the power.

Like other powers that have an AoE debuff on a targeted enemy, you run some risk of Aggroing other groups if your target bolts. However, since the effect is a very powerful slow, you don't really have to worry about them getting very far very fast.

Also, remember that it doesn't just slow their run speed. For enemies that often fly away (CoT and tsoo spirits for example), this prevents them from flying too. And best of all, it reduces their recharge rage by over 60%!

A great combo is to sneak up to a group of enemies, knock them down with Gale and then slap Snow Storm on one of them to keep them under control while you launch Freezing Rain or other powers.

Recommended # of Slots and Enhancement Priority

	( 4 Slots ) 4 slots is enough to max out both the endurance reduction and slow on this power. Use more if you want to add fun things like a chance of damage and less if you don't care to enhance the slow movement aspect. You could slot 2 endurance reduction and still get most of the benefit of this power. 80%   Endurance Reduction (80% Minimum) Default: 0 end per second With max 100% enhancement: 0 end per second This power is as expensive as running Super Speed in the middle of battle. Considering you have many other powers that drain endurance in spectacular fashion, lower this as much as you can. 50%   Slow (50% Minimum) Default: 62% With max 100% enhancement: 124% While this only buffs the slow movement aspect of the power and not slow recharge rate, it's still very useful to keep enemies from running wherever they want. Especially if you have them pinned in an AoE effect like Freezing Rain. 0%   Recharge (0% Minimum) Default: 10 sec With max 100% enhancement: 5 sec You COULD slot recharge if you want, but 10 seconds is not that long. If you find you're having to reapply Snow Storm a lot during battle, the key is more about picking better targets (tougher ones). Help The enhanceable properties of this power are listed in order of importance. Hover the mouse over each for detailed information and a description.

Steamy Mist - Look for the small cloud of steam at my feet. It's easy to see its effective range

Score

6 of 5

Summary

This has to be one of the best Team aoe buffs ever. Not only is it a team stealth, but it raises your defense against everything and ups resistance to Cold, Fire, and Energy. Combine with Super Speed for true invisibility and Recall Friend for the almighty Sneak and TP combo.

How to Use

If you haven't figured it out by now, Storm is an endurance-sucking monster! Do everything you can to increase your endurance recovery and reduce your endurance usage and you should be able (and will want to), keep this power active pretty much all the time.

If you haven't figured it out by now, Storm is an endurance-sucking monster!

Typically, the only time I turn this off is in crowded areas like the market (to be polite), during rikti raids (because people say the EBs won't come if stealth powers are on), and when trying to find the last enemy on a "defeat all" map (if they can see me, they might shoot me making them easier to find).

But if you don't take my advice or are too low level to keep it on all the time, at least turn it on:

• Whenever you enter a mission. If enemies are close to the door, they won't see you or your teammates.
• When fighting any enemies that use Cold, Fire, or any kind of energy (that's a lot by the way).

Recommended # of Slots and Enhancement Priority

	( 6 Slots ) As a power that increases both Defense AND Resistance, you will slot this to the max, guaranteed. 80%   Endurance Reduction (80% Minimum) Default: 0 end per second With max 100% enhancement: 0 end per second Just like Snow Storm, this power is as expensive as running Super Speed. Given the benefits, lower the end cost as much as you can so you can keep it on whenever you want. 40%   Defense Buff (40% Minimum) Default: 51 With max 60% enhancement: 81 Very few powers provide team defense at this level. This is great for you, better if you're a Mastermind, and best when on teams. 40%   Damage Resist (40% Minimum) Default: 20% With max 60% enhancement: 32% Maxed out, you get 25% or better damage resistance to Cold, Fire, and Energy. 20%   Recharge (20% Minimum) Default: 15 sec With max 100% enhancement: 7.5 sec If you're not using IO's you might skip this, but it's trivial to get all of the above and recharge too otherwise. Get at least 20% so you can get it back faster if it drops. Help The enhanceable properties of this power are listed in order of importance. Hover the mouse over each for detailed information and a description.

Freezing Rain - It's a mess out there, better stay inside...

Score

6 of 5

Unslotted Strength

3 x Brawl

Summary

This power is chock full of neat stuff. It slows, lowers defense and resistance, makes enemies fall down constantly, makes them run so they stop attacking (but they can't), lowers their recharge rate, and does a rapid amount of DoT damage. Yeah, that's good stuff.

How to Use

This makes a good opening move when solo since many of your enemies will immediately fall down instead of attacking you. I prefer instead to blast them back with Gale and then hit them with the Freezing Rain once I can see where they'll stop.

When teaming, make sure to wait until you see where the action is before dropping the power. The tank might Herd or he might just rush in. Don't waste your power putting it where it won't do any good.

It's also useful for tactical retreats (covering your ass), managing accidentally aggro'ed second groups, or those annoying enemies that tend to stand off and snipe from a distance.

Recommended # of Slots and Enhancement Priority

	( 6 Slots ) Unless you're just completely strapped for slots, this power really deserves a lot. Besides recharge to bring it back faster, defense debuff is a great attribute, but you'll want a few slots to buff it's range, damage, or slow effects. 80%   Recharge (80% Minimum) Default: 60 sec With max 100% enhancement: 30 sec The main value of this power is being able to use it often. Recharge is your priority hands down. 50%   Defense Debuff (50% Minimum) Default: 30-1 With max 60% enhancement: 21-1 You can't buff the damage resistance debuff effect (which is -35%), so give it to the Defense debuff instead. 0%   Endurance Reduction (0% Minimum) Default: 18 end With max 100% enhancement: 9 end Kind of expensive, but doesn't come up often enough to be a huge drain. You'll probably manage a little endurance reduction in your slotting, but don't make it a focus. 0%   Range (0% Minimum) Default: 60 Feet With max 60% enhancement: 96 Feet If you didn't take Steamy Mist, you might need to increase the range so you can launch Freezing Rain undetected until it's too late, but you wouldn't skip Steamy Mist so no need to worry about that... right!? 0%   Damage (0% Minimum) Default: 30 points With max 100% enhancement: 60 points Just like most powers of this kind, you get a lot of orange floating numbers very fast, but they're all 1's. To do more damage, you can pop a lot of inspirations, use Aim or Build Up, and triple slot it for damage, but it will never be anything to write home about. You're better off adding Chance of Damage Procs instead (which is what I did). 0%   Accuracy (0% Minimum) Default: 150% With max 100% enhancement: 300% I'm not sure what accuracy does. It doesn't affect the damage which seems to be auto-hit. It doesn't seem to affect the damage and defense debuffs. It MAY affect whether the enemies fall down or not, but it's already at 150%. Not a huge priority. 0%   Slow (0% Minimum) Default: 60% With max 100% enhancement: 120% It's strong enough as is and you have Snow Storm anyway. If you didn't take Snow Storm, it might be worth buffing this power. Help The enhanceable properties of this power are listed in order of importance. Hover the mouse over each for detailed information and a description.

Summary

There's a bit of an activation delay so this is no "emergency power", but it's very useful. If you've ever fought Tsoo Sorcerers or Storm Mavens, you already know exactly how this power works. It swirls around you pushing everything away and occasionally knocking them down.

I didn't realize it until I actually had a Storm Defender, but it also has a fairly strong accuracy debuff effect as well. According to Mid's, it also reduces their range. Lastly, it causes occasional knockback.

How to Use

This power can be difficult to control because it slowly pushes away everything from you, but it's great for herding up loose enemies that have escaped AoE effects of your teammates. It's also one of your main powers for keeping enemies trapped in corners or keeping them from running through a doorway to kill you.

Some people say I'm pushy 😉

Better yet, if fighting a small number of enemies or a single boss when solo, this accuracy debuff if almost as strong as that of a Dark user. You're survivability is very strong when they can't hit you and even if they try, you're knocking them down on their butt.

Recommended # of Slots and Enhancement Priority

	( 3 Slots ) As a power that increases both Defense AND Resistance, you will slot this to the max, guaranteed. 80%   Endurance Reduction (80% Minimum) Default: 0 end per second With max 100% enhancement: 0 end per second This power is even MORE expensive than Super Speed! Lower it as much as possible. 40%   To Hit Debuff (40% Minimum) Default: 37% With max 60% enhancement: 59.2% Max slotted, you can get this close to 50% accuracy debuff which is awesome. 0%   Recharge (0% Minimum) Default: 10 sec With max 100% enhancement: 5 sec It doesn't take very long to come back so I've never really though about more recharge. 0%   Knockback (0% Minimum) Default: 0 Feet With max 180% enhancement: 0 Feet I'm not actually sure what the knockback value is, but it doesn't really matter. The power of this effect is only good when they're close to you so enhancing the knockback would be counter to the goal of keeping them close. Help The enhanceable properties of this power are listed in order of importance. Hover the mouse over each for detailed information and a description.

Thunder Clap - A wide area stun effect

Score

4 of 5

Summary

I sometimes find it hard to take a control power over an attack, but if you can find room for it, I recommend it. Thunderclap will (with a really powerful looking animation of lightning) stun everything around you. If you want to keep enemies from running, turn the tide of a battle gone wrong, or play in pvp, this is a good power to have. It's also great if you are working on a themed character (like I am :D).

How to Use

As a Mag 2 stun, you won't get most enemies other than Minions without an added stun effect (but Tornado and Lightning Storm both have stun attributes). You can either use this for control of the minions in a mob, handling aggroed second mobs, or for stacking with your pets' stuns to stun bosses.

Recommended # of Slots and Enhancement Priority

	( 4 Slots ) Needing accuracy, recharge, and probably stun to be useful, 4 slots is probably a minimum 80%   Accuracy (80% Minimum) Default: 60% With max 100% enhancement: 120% Go high. It starts out lower than most powers and needs to be high to be useful. 50%   Recharge (50% Minimum) Default: 45 sec With max 100% enhancement: 22.5 sec This power is best when it comes back often. Both so you can stack it on the same enemy before the effect from the first wears off and because you can better control large rooms of enemies 20%   Stun (20% Minimum) Default: 14 sec With max 100% enhancement: 28 sec Increase stun duration by at least 20% so the stun duration lasts long enough that you can launch the power again. 0%   Endurance Reduction (0% Minimum) Default: 10 end With max 100% enhancement: 5 end Not a priority. Help The enhanceable properties of this power are listed in order of importance. Hover the mouse over each for detailed information and a description.

Tornado - It may be random, but it's a pet! Always take the pet!

Score

4 of 5

Unslotted Strength

32 x Brawl

Summary

Ok, yes, the tornado is a bit random. Actually, chaotic might be more accurate. It wanders about randomly, tossing enemies about, and causing disorient and fear. The main reason to use it is that it's a pet! This is especially useful in situations where you are fighting tough enemies that need to be distracted (like AVs or other players in PvP).

Best of all, Tornado does damage while also reducing the defense of your enemies. You can use it to absorb an alpha too. It may take some getting used to, but it is a powerful tool when used properly.

How to Use

Tornado scatters enemies and causes chaos, but sometimes that's ok. Whenever you're soloing, there's no reason not to use it. You might hold it for group battles, but in smaller rooms or areas where a second aggroed group needs to be distracted, Tornado is a great candidate.

The main advantage to tornado is when you have a single enemy or the enemies are held. That means the tornado will spin there doing solid DoT damage (especially useful for AVs and Monsters. Added with the stun and defense debuff aspects of Tornado, it's not only extremely powerful, but debuffs them at the same time. Most people highly underestimate Tornado.

Since Tornado can't be targeted (and therefore can't be killed), it will do damage and fling people around for as long as it's out (about 30 seconds).

Recommended # of Slots and Enhancement Priority

	( 6 Slots ) Slot this less than 6 and you're nuts! 80%   Recharge (80% Minimum) Default: 60 sec With max 100% enhancement: 30 sec The only thing better than one Tornado, is two Tornados! You won't get there with enhancing this alone, but it doesn't take too much to make it happen (Hasten being your best bet and IO bonuses being your next. 40%   Defense Debuff (40% Minimum) Default: 15-1 With max 60% enhancement: 10.5-1 This only makes you, your team, and Tornado itself hit harder. Bump this aspect as much as you can. 40%   Damage (40% Minimum) Default: 407 points With max 100% enhancement: 814 points This thing hits hard when it does hit so give it all the damage enhancement you can spare. 0%   Endurance Reduction (0% Minimum) Default: 20 end With max 100% enhancement: 10 end There are other aspects that deserve your slots far more. 0%   Range (0% Minimum) Default: 60 Feet With max 60% enhancement: 96 Feet If you can't think of anything else to enhance, range will let you drop the Tornado further from you. Not really a key issue, but you could do it if you wanted. 0%   Stun (0% Minimum) Default: 2 sec With max 100% enhancement: 4 sec The stun doesn't last long unless the Tornado has planted itself on just one enemy. It's not really worth enhancing. 0%   Knockback (0% Minimum) Default: 6 Feet With max 180% enhancement: 16.8 Feet Why? Leave it empty Help The enhanceable properties of this power are listed in order of importance. Hover the mouse over each for detailed information and a description.

Lightning Storm - Pet number two. Stationary, but badass!

Score

6 of 5

Unslotted Strength

4 x Brawl (per hit)

Summary

It does damage, knockback, and looks FREAKING COOL! It's a highly territorial power that will keep enemies away from wherever you place it and is invincible like Tornado. Point to note: it always forms directly over your head (can't be set at a targeted location).

You can't enhance it, but this also has a fear effect. Lastly, it drains endurance, and reduces your target's endurance recovery rate, but BOTH of these can be enhanced 😀

How to Use

As with other knockback powers, it can mess up your team's control pretty badly so it may take a while to get used to. But if you're guarding something, have only one or two enemies you're fighting, or it's already chaotic, fire away!

There's something so very satisfying about punishing the heck out of any enemy foolish enough to try and come within melee range 🙂

Recommended # of Slots and Enhancement Priority

	( 6 Slots ) Slot this less than 6 and you're nuts! 80%   Recharge (80% Minimum) Default: 90 sec With max 100% enhancement: 45 sec With a duration of 60 seconds, you can get this to the point of overlap without any other recharge bonuses (and you should). The only thing better than a Lightning Storm is TWO Lightning Storms. 50%   Damage (50% Minimum) Default: 50 points With max 100% enhancement: 100 points This greatly adds to your over-all damage potential so don't leave it hanging. 0%   Range (0% Minimum) Default: 0 Feet With max 60% enhancement: 0 Feet According to Mid's planner, you can enhance the range of LS, but since you can't choose a casting position, I can only assume this increases the attack range of the storm. There are probably a bunch of applications for this, but I gave priority to other aspects. 0%   Endurance Modification (0% Minimum) Default: 10% With max 100% enhancement: 20% This not only drains their endurance, but prevents recovery of endurance. Against AVs or bosses, this could be highly valuable so consider buffing this some if you can spare the slots. 15%   Endurance Reduction (15% Minimum) Default: 31 end With max 100% enhancement: 15.5 end At 30 points endurance, drop it a little if you can. 0%   Accuracy (0% Minimum) Default: 150% With max 100% enhancement: 300% With no enhancement at all, it already hits almost all the time because of it's inherent bonus to hit. 0%   Knockback (0% Minimum) Default: 6 Feet With max 180% enhancement: 16.8 Feet Meh. Not necessary Help The enhanceable properties of this power are listed in order of importance. Hover the mouse over each for detailed information and a description.