This. It's the POINT of a shout or spell to control something.
I know my fire breath or Unrelenting Force may hit allies, but I can still control that to an extent.

The whole point is you're calling on nature to help -you-, not murder -everything- around you.

Thanks for all the sarcastic comments about, Why should you control lightning? Don't comment if your going to say that.


To the others who gave sensible comments, I completely agree.

So, to those of you who are arguing "derp can't control lightning," would you feel the same way if I shouted Clear Skies and it started raining instead? Or what if I called a dragon and he just killed me? Or what if I called my companion and he just walked off and ate a sandwich? Or how about I use the fire breath and it comes out sideways and hits my dog? Or what if I use Unrelenting Force and it pushes me backwards, instead of the enemies forwards?

The whole point of the shout is that you control it. Calling a storm and just creating bad weather is one thing, if that's all the shout did then i'd agree with you. In that case, I would literally just be calling a storm and then it would do whatever it may.

But clearly that's not what the shout is doing. The shout brings down lightning bolts by the dozens, which is not something that happens in a normal storm. The shout is clearly meant to be a weapon, not just a fancy forecast mechanism. I don't like that it can, and will, kill companions and allies. Reason? Because it's clearly meant to be used on a large group of enemies. I have not been in any situation in this game at all where I am the only person facing a whole stack of enemies. No, when I get into that sort of battle I have followers, companions, and friends. Storm Call is most useless at the very times it was meant to be used.

That needs to be fixed.

well you can do something about summons and companions

give you companions 2 items with schock resist so he has about 90% or more

summon storm atronachs

easy not? this is how smart people use it.

if you are complaining because storm call does not affect Dragons in the air, then you have a good point


If you are complaining because you called down a force of nature in the wrong place, then you are talking absolute rubbish...

I think that it only becomes useful against dragons at level 3 shout, and when you are by yourself.

I plan to use Storm Atronachs as allies, so Storm call will not be a problem for me. It only makes sense that Storm call hits everyone, because natural electrical storms will behave like that.

I feel your pain though. When I first unlocked it, I was anxious to use it against a dragon, but it never even hit once. In a separate encounter against two giants, I used the level 1 version, and it literally shredded both them apart when combined with destruction spells coming out of my hands at the same time. I think the range is spherical around the player's character, and the different levels increase the range.

O Rly?

Because i distinctly remember shooting lightning out of my hands a few times.

Not being able to exclude friendlies from AOE is stupid.

I think the storm has trouble targeting flying things. I've fought dragons for the entire duration and had it never hit them once when they were the only things i was fighting.

I don't know what I'm doing so X svcks!!!!

It's this thread again....

the same lightning as in chainlightning that hits companions and summons too?
every mage aoe spells hits friend and foe
every shout hits friend and foe

so is an elementary rule

shush. It's worthless.. There are some shouts that are just garbage.. Kyne's peace, throw voice, storm call, etc. Yawn. Stormcall even attacks your fricken followers. It is worthless and I hope they either patch it or someone mods the hell out of it.

@azruedrake yes but not every shout continues like Stormcall. Every other spell or shout that can damage allies isn't constantly active until it expires and the consequences aren't nearly as bad if you do missfire.

[censored]'s broken.

AOE hitting companions LOL

this, only not so LOL. I am disappointed with a lot of the shouts. Most of them are too weak and worthless.. But this game needs some serious balancing anyway as we ALL can agree.

The shouts generally are fun, but I think they could be more powerful. Shouts of the lore were supposed to be strong enough to break down city walls and defeat entire armies. Obviously Fus Ro Dah and Storm Call are the weapons of choice for that, but can you imagine if Talos had used Storm Call? He would have wiped out his own army.

Obviously he didn't, so I can't see why we should. Again, it needs to be adjusted. I don't mind the friendly fire, the biggest problem is that it's completely lethal friendly fire, and it targets friends as often as foes. I think the chances of friendly fire should be reduced from "completely random" to some margin of control on the part of our character.

Also, I'm surprised that there aren't more shouts for other things. Consider:

Animal allegiance and Calm animal seem to have more or less the same purpose which strikes me as a waste of a shout. (Why calm? Allegiance would do anything calm would)

I never use slow time, because it slows me down along with it. I'm not entirely sure how that's useful. I can see everything happening in slow motion, but I can't react to it any faster because my character moves... in slow motion. Maybe I just don't get it, but that one seems botched to me.

Ice Breath and Fire Breath each have very short ranges. The dragons that use them can spout those things out like jets, but for me it only travels about as far as Flames does. I don't know why my version would be so much shorter than the version Dragons use, since it's the same shout and all.

I'm also surprised that the shouts generally don't have any high damage potential that is comparable to high level destruction. I can do a lot more damage with flame magic than I ever can with even the highest level fire breath. At the beginning of the game this was reversed, just shouting "Yol" was very powerful and my fire magic was just a supplement. Now, though, the shout almost seems like a waste of time considering how long the cool down is. I generally find myself just using Disarm, Dragonrend, Elemental Fury, or Force during any fight.

disagree. You can't even use it near settlements without it giving you bounties left and right. I don't think it should target anything but hostiles

It's like using a Master level destro spell. It doesn't determine friend from foe, it just fries.

Out in the wilderness, it can annihilate Forsworn camps.

join the dark side!

What's with all the glib morons? He's annoyed with the fact that it has friendly fire and locks onto allies. And it's true, it's a pain in the ass.

Its because you cannot control lightning. You Are not Thor.

Personally, I'm continually annoyed that gamesas can't seem to manage spells and shouts to NOT damage friendlies. Need to take lessons from Blizzard on that....

Storm Call killed my wife. I promise Aela right before she died, id never marry again...

Cannot control lightning.
Just made lightning rain from the sky.
Lolwut.

but you can breathe fire and raise the dead? Your argument is invalid. You are comparing real life with a video game. Sometimes certain features of a game are unrealistic because they WORK better that way.

There's nothing better than standing in the middle of a town or city and sending the chills of death up the townspeople's spines as they watch their friends, lovers, and companions fall like dominoes with each lightning strike. And when guards decide to intervene, the citizens scream in terror as they watch their "protectors" die a fiery death in the middle of the streets and impaled by my Daedric Greatsword. With such a vulgar display of power (Pantera reference intended), my message to the Jarl is clear: "This is MY city."

I think seeing everyone die would send more than a shiver down the spine.