Anthem Storm | How to use the Storm Javelin effectively

Anthem is out now, and BioWare’s fun new loot shooter has four impressive Iron Man-like Javelin suits to choose from: Ranger, Colossus, Interceptor, and Storm. If you ask us, the Storm might be the most fun of the lot. It’s essentially an armored flying space wizard, with elemental magic powers to rain death down on all who dare to face you. But what are some of the best Anthem Storm builds you can have?

We’ve already talked previously about the best Anthem builds for each of the Javelin types, but now we’re going to go more in-depth with the Storm Javelin and look at several of the most useful things you can do with Storm, from the best Seals to use, best components and weapons to equip, to use to use its Ultimate and combos effectively. Let’s take a look.

Anthem Storm | Best Focus Seals

Glacial Spear is an ice detonator beam, and can make for excellent ice combos with any ice primer (either from you or a partner). Frost Shards are fun as little snowballs to throw at mobs to freeze them, which can buy you some time, either to get away or kill them, but aren’t that powerful. Burning Orb can either be fired quickly or, better, charged for a devastating fire shot. It’s a great fire detonator too. Shock Blast seems like a powerful lightning ball until you use it and it bounces off one enemy and disappears. It’s good for an electric detonator or tight spaces, but otherwise not so great. Arc Burst is an awesome lightning strike that makes you feel like the Emperor in Star Wars, but it’s not a primer or detonator so don’t expect to get combos with it.

Anthem Storm | Best Blast Seals

Lightning Strike is by far the most fun power in the game. Hold the button down, choose a circular location (enemies it’ll hit turn yellow) and unleash an instant death storm. It’s a cool detonator too. Ice Storm handles much the same, except it doesn’t just damage, it also freezes, so it’s a great combo primer. Flame Burst is also similar, except with a fire storm instead, but it’s not quite as useful as the previous too since it doesn’t prime or detonate combos. It’s just death. Living Flame, however, is a neat primer that’s essentially a fiery homing rocket. Good all-round, then. Ice Blast fires a chunk of ice at enemies, freezing them, but you better hope nothing gets in the way. Ice Storm is better.

Anthem Storm | Best Support Seals

There are only two Storm Support Seals, so don’t go hoping for a decent one to show up as there aren’t any in Anthem (at least, not yet). Nexus creates a bubble where cooldowns are greatly increased, allowing you and your teammates chance to use their abilities more quickly… except no one will notice it, and the battle will quickly move away from the bubble. Wind Wall is far more useful, as it basically just creates a barrier that enemy projectiles can’t get through. Just stick it up anywhere facing an enemy, especially a turret, and it’ll be of some use. Even if it looks like it’s doing nothing.

Anthem Storm | How to use the Elemental Storm Ultimate

The Storm Javelin’s Ultimate ability is, appropriately, the Elemental Storm, and it’s tremendously powerful. It fires off an ice, fire, and lightning barrage at your enemies, and you can aim each of them between hits. Look out for enemies turning yellow, so you can tell the barrage will hit them. It finishes with a meteor strike, which should kill everything that isn’t a boss. Use it against large groups of enemies or more than one powerful enemy. It’ll do significant damage to bosses, but only use it on them if they’re the only enemy left you’ll be facing.

Anthem Storm | Best components to equip

In case you haven’t noticed, the Storm Javelin is all about elemental attacks, so you’ll want to equip your Storm with some useful components that maximize those abilities. Elemental Empowerment is pretty good, as it increases your abilities’ recharge rates by 50 percent, meaning that you could be flinging lightning strikes and homing fireballs like nobody’s business, and not even bother with firing weapons. However, there is a 20 percent decrease in damage, which might make it less attractive, especially if you use weapons a lot too.

Elemental Synergy goes the opposite direction to Empowerment, as it boosts ability damage by 50 percent, but at the cost of decreasing the recharge times by 20 percent. If you’re a weapons person this might be a good one to use, but we’d still probably pick Empowerment. Elemental Conduit, on the other hand, is nothing but useful. Like Synergy it increases the damage of your abilities, but there’s no cost, since it also decreases physical damage you receive. Generally don’t bother with weapon or ammo-specific components, since the Storm Javelin isn’t about those, although as you unlock more slots, any components that boost shield or armor are good all-rounders too.

Anthem Storm | Best weapons to use

The Storm isn’t as flimsy as the Interceptor, but it’s by no means a strong weapons-based fighter like the Colossus or even Ranger. A Storm player will want to focus on hovering around the battlefield, which boosts the Javelin’s shields, and use its abilities to start raining death on its enemies from a distance. Close-range is a no-no since the Storm won’t last long in a fight like that, although it does have a good melee attack that knocks back enemies.

Therefore, when it comes to weapons to equip with your Storm, you’ll want to look at decent mid or long-range weaponry such as sniper rifles, assault weaponry, or marksman rifles. The Devastator sniper rifle is one of our favorites, as it’s essentially an instant long-range RPG, so if you’ve got one keep it in reserve for the most troublesome enemies. Pair it with a decent marksman rifle and you should be good to go with weapons, just remember you’ll want to mostly focus on your elemental abilities. Don’t forget to hover, either. It doesn’t just look cool, it also boosts your protection.

Anthem Storm | Best Storm combos

Your Blast Seals offer all your best Primers to start combos, so Ice Storm or Living Flame. Ice Storm, of course, offers a powerful area-of-effect attack on multiple enemies, but Living Flame is a homing attack, so you’ll have to choose which one you want to equip. Try both out in Freeplay, see what works for you. Remember not to bother with Flame Burst at all when it comes to combos, since it does nothing.

After that, your best Focus Seal detonator options are Burning Orb or Glacial Spear. These two come down to either firing small fireballs at enemies or spraying them with an ice beam, but otherwise they can set off a combo no problem. You can, of course, use some Blast Seals as detonators instead, such as Lightning Strike. However, you’ll mostly want to focus on the tried-and-tested combo system of Blast Seal primer tied up with Focus Seal detonator. That’s only if you don’t work with other teammates to pull of combos, of course, as in that case you can use as many combo detonators as you like.