The Wizard Javelin Storm can control the elements in Anthem and unleash them with destructive force upon his enemies. You will learn how to best use his power and what to watch out for in this guide with a build suggestion for the Storm.
The “Space Wizard” uses the elements of fire, ice, and lightning to dominate the battlefield from above. Storm pilots float exceptionally long in the air thanks to his unique technology.
Overview
| Advantages | Disadvantages |
| Extremely long hovering duration | Disadvantaged on the ground |
| Gains additional shield in the air | Delayed shield recharge |
| Abilities have a large radius | No access to acid effects |
| Teleport evade maneuver | Only usable in intervals |
Ideal for:
- Players who enjoy attacking from the air
- Players who primarily want to use abilities
- Players who want to maintain overview during the chaos
- Players striving for a “power fantasy”
This is what makes the Storm: The Storm is the perfect combination of destruction and elegance. Its unique appearance is mainly due to the seals on its arms, originally designed by the enemy faction “Dominion”.
This Javelin can act as (air) support but can also deal large area damage.
Additionally, the Storm has a unique evade skill that allows the Javelin to teleport over a short distance. However, this maneuver can only be activated in intervals.
What are the abilities of the Storm? This Javelin has a wide range of elemental attacks that can cause explosions or be fired as projectiles. Therefore, it can be referred to as a “force of nature”.
With the seals on its arms, the Storm can attack in various ways. This includes fireballs, ice spikes, and various shock explosions.
Furthermore, it has support skills that allow it to shield itself from fine-grained attacks or support its teammates.
Its ultimate ability is particularly impressive: the Storm rains down multiple meteor-like elemental attacks that cause massive area damage upon impact.
Build Tip for Quick Leveling
The Storm has a variety of offensive attack options that can be combined. We have created a “build” for you that will help you level up efficiently at the start of the game:
- Blast Seal: Ice Storm (Primer)
- Focus Seal: Fireball (Detonator)
- Enhancement Seal: Acceleration Field
Learn what Primers and Detonators are in our combo guide.
What can this build do? With this configuration, you should progress effortlessly. The Ice Storm completely freezes affected enemies, rendering them immobile. You can prepare your combo on single targets with fireballs, thus creating multiple combos in succession.
The Acceleration Field helps you use your abilities as often as possible. This is the ideal method to familiarize yourself with the abilities of the Storm and learn the combo system. Don’t forget that you can also charge your fireball attack.
How to Play the Storm
With this Javelin, you should stay in the air as often and as long as possible. Your additional shield is only active during hover mode, so you should avoid spending too much time on the ground.
From above, you have a better idea of where your abilities will hit exactly and where enemies are located. This way, you can support your teammates remotely with combos while fully utilizing the Storm’s potential.
If your regular shield is depleted from enemy fire, it takes a short while to recharge. Compared to the other Javelins, the Storm recovers somewhat slower from a “shield break”. Therefore, try at all costs to maintain both of your shields at all times.
What role does the Storm play in a team? As Storm pilots, your gear determines your role in combat. Depending on your build, you can either prepare different enemy groups for combos or trigger them yourself with high effectiveness.
With the large reach of its abilities, you can apply a status effect to many enemies simultaneously. By “priming” these enemies, you can then trigger a combo attack by responding with a “detonator ability”.
This is how combos work: By successfully combining a Primer ability and a Detonator ability, you achieve increased combo damage and can wipe out entire groups of enemies with just one hit.
Due to the wide area of effect of its abilities, the Storm proves to be an ideal combo starter in a team. By equipping two Primer abilities, you can prioritize specific targets for your team and apply a status effect like burn or freeze.
This strategy allows your team to clear the battlefield with ease.
On the other hand, you can also equip two Detonator abilities and deal devastating damage across the battlefield with successful combo attacks. However, for this strategy, you need at least one team member whose abilities are designed to prepare combo attacks.
Due to the Storm’s passive ability, this Javelin is excellent as a double detonator, as it deals massive damage while distributing elemental status effects to enemies.
How to play the Storm solo? Of course, you can also trigger your combos yourself. This configuration is extremely helpful for solo players, as you are not dependent on your teammates with this build.
The Storm’s abilities are quite powerful, so your focus should be on taking as little damage as possible. Since this Javelin is a “glass cannon”, you should master your teleport maneuver and use it with good timing.
If you need to land during a battle, use your melee ability to knock back approaching enemies with just one strike.
The Abilities of the Storm
These are the customizable ability slots:
- Blast Seal
- Focus Seal
- Enhancement Seal
- Components
In Anthem, each Javelin can be equipped with various modifications and abilities. Which ones you choose is your personal decision. Here, you can distinguish between Primers, Detonators, and neutral abilities.
Components, on the other hand, provide passive bonuses and are not manually activatable effects.
What should you pay attention to in the team? Before you start an expedition, you should discuss with your teammates who wants to take which role. This way, you can decide which gear is most suitable.
If your teammate is, for example, an Interceptor who can detonate combos with their melee, it is advisable to bring at least one Primer ability. On the other hand, if paired with a “priming” Colossus, strong Detonator attacks are more suitable.
Blast Seal
What is the Blast Seal? The Blast Seal includes the more explosive attacks of the Storm. This includes abilities that achieve a large area of effect or deal a lot of damage in a short time.
Which Blast Seals are particularly good? “Living Flame” and “Lightning Strike” are particularly effective.
What can the Living Flame? With this ability, the Storm fires an explosive fireball that tracks targets and applies a fire status effect upon contact.
Since this ability is a Primer ability, you can prioritize enemies for your team. Primers prepare combos. Additionally, the targeting helps to hit hard-to-reach enemies that hide behind objects or cover with a good chance.
What can the Lightning Strike? The Lightning Strike is a Detonator and causes high lightning damage over a large area. Detonators trigger a combo.
This lightning attack is very good for solo players to detonate their own attacks, as the lightning strikes relatively quickly and can hit many enemies hard. With a successful combo, the lightning status effect spreads to nearby enemies, dealing even more damage.
Focus Seal
Which Focus Seals are particularly good? As the ice status effect is currently quite potent, “Frost Shards” and “Glacier Spear” are effective options for this slot.
What do the Frost Shards do? With this ability, the Storm fires rapid ice shards that deal ice damage and freeze individual targets upon repeated hits.
This is a Primer ability. The ice status effect temporarily immobilizes affected enemies, preventing them from moving. Therefore, you can optimally use your melee ability to trigger a quick combo.
Since the affected enemy is immobilized, you nullify the risk of being hit by them.
What does the Glacier Spear do? The Glacier Spear fires a powerful beam of ice energy in the targeted direction.
This ability is a quite strong Detonator that spreads the ice status effect to surrounding enemies upon a successful combo. This allows you to precisely detonate remote single targets and save your teammates from tricky situations.
Neutral Attacks
What are neutral attacks? Abilities such as “Bow Explosion” are neither Primers nor Detonators. However, they have higher base damage and do not rely on combos.
What does the Bow Explosion do? With this attack, the Javelin releases an electrical charge that jumps to nearby targets and deals heavy damage.
This ability is particularly suitable for enemies that have shields. Since enemy shields are particularly vulnerable to electricity, the Bow Explosion, with its high base damage, offers the best way to destroy them.
Enhancement Seal
What Enhancement Seals are available? Here, the Storm has two options. A defensive ability called “Wind Wall” and a supportive ability named “Acceleration Field”.
What does the Wind Wall do? With this ability, the Storm creates a transparent wall of wind that deflects enemy projectiles. Moreover, all allies can shoot through it and hit enemies behind.
With the Wind Wall, a Storm pilot can temporarily neutralize heavy enemies or turrets and provide crucial fire protection to other members from a distance.
What does the Acceleration Field do? This ability creates a spherical field that appears at your current position and reduces the cooldown of all equipped abilities for allied players within the radius. After leaving the field, the effect persists for a few seconds.
The Acceleration Field allows Storm pilots to spam their abilities against enemies. This support skill is particularly effective at dealing targeted damage against heavy single targets or bosses.
As many team members as possible should benefit from the effect; therefore, the correct placement of this ability is one of the most important factors to consider.
Melee Ability
How does the melee work? In “Fiery Strike”, the Storm uses his seals to perform a flaming thrust attack with his palm. This attack can push back affected enemies.
What is the Fiery Strike suitable for? Since this melee acts as a Detonator, you can use it to activate a combo on single targets if no Detonator ability is currently available.
Furthermore, you can combine this attack with your evade maneuver to link the teleportation effect with the melee and execute an unpredictable blow.
Ultimate Ability
This is how the ultimate ability works: In “Elemental Storm”, the Storm summons several powerful elemental attacks, including meteorites that crash down on enemies in succession.
What makes the Elemental Storm so special? This ability consists of a sequence of Primer and Detonator attacks.
Due to this special property, this ultimate creates combos autonomously with every activation and can thus be activated directly without preparation.
How do I build the ultimate ability? Your ability bar charges up with successful combos. However, this only applies to combos that you detonate yourself and not the detonations of other players.
Passive Ability
This passive ability belongs to the Storm: This Javelin distributes elemental status effects to all enemies in the vicinity upon successful combos.
This passive ability is optimal for the Storm, as its elemental attacks already have a large range. With this additional effect, your combos become even more effective and reach even more enemies.
Moreover, this passive ability makes life significantly easier for your teammates and gives your group a significant advantage in the endgame.
Alternative Storm Build for Melee
This is why we recommend this build: Since there are countless ways to effectively use the Storm at range, we have thought of a more unconventional build. This variant offers a refreshing alternative and is also a powerful aid for your team.
If you are already fit enough for the endgame in Anthem, we also have an alternative endgame build for you that specializes in ranged combat. There, we focus on masterwork equipment and explain how to use it correctly. This way, the Storm can easily handle the Grandmaster difficulty levels.
Equipment
- Blast Seal: Ice Storm
- Focus Seal: Shock Explosion
- Enhancement Seal: Wind Wall
This is what the abilities do:
- Ice Storm (Primer): Places targeted ice fields that create small ice explosions and freeze enemies.
- Shock Explosion (Primer): Releases a projectile of electrical energy that bounces off walls and seeks enemies.
- Wind Wall: Creates a defensive wall of wind that deflects enemy projectiles.
Components
- Component 1: Elemental Synergy
- Component 2: Elemental Empowerment
- Component 3: Elemental Channeling
- Component 4: Melee Inscription
- Component 5: Shield Enhancement
- Component 6: Armor Enhancement
How to Use This Melee Build
Why is this build good in melee? With this configuration, the main focus of the Storm is priming, i.e., preparing enemies for combos. To do this, you use the melee attack as your only Detonator. The components ensure that you deliver better hits.
This is the procedure: With this build, you should not move too far away from the battlefield unless you have a specific teammate who detonates combos for you. A detonating Colossus with the ability “Battle Cry” would be the best partner for this configuration.
If you are out solo, you should stay close to the ground more often to collect health orbs at any time. Unlike standard Storm builds, your focus here is on the melee attack “Fiery Strike”. For this reason, you need to adjust your playstyle somewhat to be successful with this composition.
Once you see an enemy, you can hit them with the Primer ability of your choice. The Ice Storm is perfect for small groups of enemies. The Shock Explosion is suitable for single targets and enemies with a shield system. After you have applied a status effect to any enemies, you can teleport to them and detonate them with a quick “high-five”.
After that, you can finish the rest with your weapons, or you can take another round in the air and wait for your abilities to be available again.
In doing so, you should mainly focus on the Ice Storm, as it has a better area of effect and can freeze affected enemies immediately. This reduces the risk of being hit on the ground and also simplifies triggering combo attacks, as frozen enemies become automatically immobile.
If it gets too hot on the ground, the Wind Wall will protect you from enemy fire. With this support ability, you can calmly prime your opponents while being safely shielded. At the right moment, you can dash forward and give them the rest with a face punch.
However, the effectiveness of the Wind Wall quickly diminishes in the Grandmaster difficulty levels, so you should consider the other option, the Acceleration Field, for more challenging activities. However, for this build, the Wind Wall is the much more suitable choice.
This is what the components do:
- Elemental Synergy (1): Increases gear damage but lowers the recharge rate of gear.
- Elemental Empowerment (2): Increases the recharge rate of gear but lowers gear damage.
- Elemental Channeling (3): Increases elemental damage but lowers physical damage.
- Melee Inscription (4): Increases damage from melee weapons.
- Shield Enhancement (5): Significantly increases the shield of the Javelin.
- Armor Enhancement (6): Significantly increases the armor of the Javelin.
What the components bring in the melee build
Thanks to Elemental Synergy (1) and Elemental Empowerment (2), your two abilities ultimately receive 30% more damage and 30% faster recharge time. Since the respective malus of the components is balanced out by this combination, your abilities are fundamentally more effective.
The Elemental Channeling (3) increases the damage of all elemental abilities at the expense of weapon damage. Both of your equipped abilities deal elemental damage as does your melee attack, Fiery Strike. These are therefore enhanced.
The Melee Inscription (4) further increases the damage of your melee attack. This way, the Fiery Strike is even more reliable as a Detonator.
To be able to take enough damage in melee, we need the Shield Enhancement (5) and Armor Enhancement (6). These two components provide the Storm with defensive protection options that it critically relies on in this build.
What weapons are suitable for the melee build
Which weapons should you use? You should choose weapons that are most effective at short to medium range. The masterwork variant of the heavy pistol “Avenging Herald” is an excellent choice for this build.
This is what the Avenging Herald does: This weapon is relatively accurate at close and medium range. The critical multiplier is particularly high for heavy pistols, causing substantial critical damage on precision hits.
The masterwork version of this weapon comes with the additional perk “Doomsday Hawk”, which increases your weapon damage by 200% as long as you are hovering. Because of this, this pistol is perfect for this build, as you should predominantly stay airborne with the Storm to maintain your shield.
Since your enemies are often frozen due to the Ice Storm, you can easily achieve headshots with this pistol and efficiently eliminate them even without Detonator abilities.
If you want to learn more about unique weapons, you can check out this post 10 of the best weapons in Anthem.
What weapon types are also suitable? Another notable category would be shotguns. If you get used to this playstyle and find yourself in the heat of battle often, you can use any type of shotgun to better keep enemies in check at close range.
If you are in a team and want to take on the role of a more leisurely Primer, you can also carry long-range rifles. This way, you can stay further back and reduce the risk of being hit while simultaneously supporting your team from a distance.
How do the other Javelins differ? The four Javelins differ primarily in their contrasting playstyles. The balanced Ranger offers the best combination of offense and defense, while the lightning-fast Interceptor tears apart its enemies in melee.
When do I unlock the other Javelins in Anthem? At first, you will start your journey with a stripped-down version of the Ranger. After the tutorial, once you reach pilot level 2, you can choose your preferred Javelin from the four classes.
You unlock the remaining Javelins at pilot levels 8, 16, and 26.
- Find out which class might suit you best here.
- Here we have a build for the Interceptor that also works solo.
