So I'm trying out (another) new toon with PFF and Force powers. I decided to go Ego/Pre for better protective barriers and ranged knockback but now that I got Force Cascade last night I'm wondering if maybe I should have taken Int as a SS.

Force cascade is an End hog -@ level 24 a full End bar barely allows me to fire it off at it's lowest severity and it does less damage then my force blast.

My question is this: How do I get force cascade to work without having to go too far into other power sets (I want to keep him primarily force)?

If you have an energy form active when you activate force cascade it will consume the energy form and SUBSTANTIALLY reduce the cost of using the ability.

Try pairing it and electric sheath or one of the other energy forms and you'll find that it does way more damage and is far cheaper to cast.

If you don't want to be limited to casting it only when you have energy forms up however, you could look at chest beam as an alternative. It does somewhat similar damage, has a similar knockback, but half the cost (and half the range) of force cascade, and doesn't consume energy forms.

Energy forms being Electric Sheath, Ego Surge etc?

Does Force have something considered a form?

Kinetic Manipulation and the Energy Refraction advantage from Force Bolts are/apply energy forms.

Just take Kinetic Manipulation. That counts as an energy form and is in the Force framework. Field Surge also works with that passive.

Unless you plan on casting barriers on others don't bother with Pre super-stat.
I have a toon that uses force sheath adv. i get around 60-70 energy per damage.
it can fills my 340 energy in less than a second if 3-4 attack me.
Especially if you get a bleed.. its infinite energy for the duration of the bleed.
As for the energy form you can use the offensive passive of Force or if you like to have a personal shield,
Go for the Force energy builder advantage, Yes the one that forms a shield around you.
It is considered a temporary energy form.

Also with the Force shield and force sheath advantage you can take energy from getting damaged even in avenger Role

If im getting hit i can spam cascade even without a form.

on my cascade toon i have Ego/End SS and, at level 40, I still can't cast a fully charged Force Cascade while flying... I either need to land or use an Energy Form. When I get around to respecing her I'm definitely going End/Int. Also, I use Dark Transfusion to give me energy. With PFF I don't have to worrytoo much about the self-damage or healing reduction from DT so it synergizes great.

I did not know the EB advantage was considered an energy form - good to know. I thought about dropping PFF and picking up Kinetic manipulation but I'm committed to trying to make PFF work. I'll play with the advantage and some other energy forms to see if that helps me with cascade. I didn't know energy forms reduce the cost, so once again, this forum delivers the help.

Generally speaking is it bad to SS a stat that falls under the same category? If I go Ego/Int as my SS they are both considered "utility" in gear thus reducing how often I can gear up those stats. I've always tried to avoid that, I'm wondering if I've been unreasonable in doing so.

I don't usually worry too much about gear since many mission rewards and enemy drops don't necessarily follow the stat/slot layout that crafting items do.

If I'm going force and plan on taking force cascade, I'll just take the adv to force bolts. This allows me to still have my choice of passive power. The effect of FC "shutting off" an energy form lasts about 8 secs last time I checked, which fits perfectly with the force refraction adv from force bolts since it has an 8 sec cooldown on its of effect anyway.