I consider Storm to be predominantly for skill challenges. It certainly CAN be used in combat to solid effect, but is often more useful outside of combat in most situations except Deadly fights.
That's a thing good right? It's a different option that doesn't just fall in the typical better/worse* paradigm so it allows more diversity in players options rather than "Im GWM/PAM with X class" clones.
Yup. I played a shield and board one, so I ended up taking things like lucky, ritual caster and chef...
Do people really see that many GWM/PAM builds. Don't get me wrong I have seen some but most melee characters do not have these two feats.
I think it depends on your local table culture but when I was GMing Al, PaM at least was extremely prevalent but that was much earlier in the additions life cycle before there was a lot of racial options that had built-in bonus actions.
Not really. Across about a dozen tables I've noticed... a player will do it. Cool! Then that player doesn't do it again even if they play another melee, and because the first player did it the rest of the players at the table seem less likely to also do it. I did see it happens twice at one table, but that was with a new player who was not around for the first instance of GWM/PAM.
The party's level 8 now, and the passives and active uses of the runes plus the Runic Shield are pretty impressive. I really don't know how the designers thought this subclass wouldn't eclipse all the others in sheer effectiveness.
The only reason you'd pick something else is if you wanted to definitely outdamage everyone else, or if you didn't want to pay attention to the game between your turns
