As far as I can tell, there is something amiss with both Storm Pillar at-will and Lightning Bolt encounter, if I am wrong and misunderstanding the mechanics please clarify and then ignore this post.
Lightning Bolt (used to be called Spell Storm pre mod 16 I think)
The only reason I use this encounter really (and ever have) is because it is supposed to "refresh" stacks of arcane and chill. I take this to mean that it refills all stacks. I was just using it and noticed when paying close attention to my arcane stacks icons in the top bar that when triggered it has absolutely no effect on the arcane stacks (I'm playing Arcanist so no idea about chill) no more stacks appeared and the ones which are there do not last any longer than they would anyway. So as far as I can see, this encounter is not doing anything to arcane stacks as it is supposed to. If it is supposed to be doing something other, would someone please provide feedback on this thread so we know what it actually does and can decide on whether we want to still use it or not as the distance range is limited.
Storm Pillar
Two things for this... one is the same as mentioned for the encounter above, it is supposed to 'refresh arcane stacks' when fully charged, however when in battle and fully charging it, it has no effect on arcane stacks. So it does not refill all stacks and has no effect on the ones which are there.
Also, when testing this at-will on the practice dummys in Stronghold I noticed that when the lightning arcs across to the next one (which is a feature of this at-will), it does no damage and has no effect on the dummy. What does happen is that the floater figure of damage rising from the second dummy shows '0' (zero) each time. The arcing of the lighting from the main target to those nearby is a main feature of this at-will and I would imagine that you were supposed to deal damage with it, it just tells us that it arcs across to nearby enemies and doesn't say what it actually does, but seeing there are damage floaters coming up from the nearby dummy when it arcs I assume it means it is supposed to deal some damage, that the floaters are showing zero tells me it is doing nothing. Once again, if I am misunderstanding the mechanics of this power, please would someone from the forum admin/Cryptic provide some official feedback to clarify.
Cheers.
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Comments
It would be helpful if you would list your character level and the stats of your powers (just the numeric ones not the percentages). The Stronghold is level 80 and the dummies are a 'known' enemy target, so what you have would help others respond to your question.
The dummies in the Trade of Blades are rated level 9 and PE is not scaled so you might find it an easier environment to test in. 2300 main, 380 secondary targets.
> When a attacking a target results in '0' damage that normally indicates that the value of your powers do not exceed the minimum value of the target (e.g. you have Armor Penetration of 16999 and the target has Defense of 17000). Your stats *must* be higher than the target or you will do no damage.
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This is incorrect. The maximum damage resistance available normally is 50%. If you somehow have 0 Armor Penetration, you would still do half damage before deflection or other forms of mitigation are applied.